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WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 



BY THE 

Key. JAMES KUSSELL MILLER. 



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PHILADELPHIA : 1 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 1334 Chestnut Stkeet. 






COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotvpe,rs and Electrotypers, Philada. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. — What is your Life? 7 

II. — Getting Help from the Bible 17 

III. — Practical Consecration 27 

IV. — Help for Worried Week-Days 35 

V. — The Cure for Care 46 

VI. — Glimpses at Life's Windows 54 

VII.-— The Marriage Altar, and After 66 

VIII. — Eeligion in the Home 77 

IX. — The Ministry of Sorrow 87 

X. — As Unto the Lord 98 

XI. — Humility and Kesponsibility 107 

XII. — Not to be Ministered Unto 117 

XIII. — Weariness in Well-Doing 125 

XIV. — Wayside Ministries 135 

XV. — The Beauty of Quiet Lives 144 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XVI. — Kindness that Comes too Late 154 

XVII. — The Duty of Encouragement 163 

XVIII.— On Loving Others 173 

XIX. — Thoughtfulness and Tact 183 

XX. — Mutual Forbearance 193 

XXL— Manly Men 203 

XXII. —Books and Beading 214 

XXIIL— Personal Beauty 224 

XXIV.— Taking Cheerful Views 234 

XXV.— Something about Amusements 245 

XXVI. — On the Choice of Friends 258 

XXVII. — The Ethics of Home Decoration 265 

XXVIII. — Pictures in the Heart 275 

XXIX.— Losses 282 

XXX. — The Service of Consecration 290 

XXXL— Beautiful Old Age 300 

XXXII. — Unconscious Farewells 308 



DEDICATORY. 



It may be that this little book will be accepted 
of the Master and sent by him on a mission of 
helpfulness to some struggling lives. It is now 
laid humbly at his feet with this simple hope. 
Its aim is to help young Christians especially to 
take the religion of Christ out of closet and sanc- 
tuary and creed, and get it into their daily lives 
of toil, temptation and care. Perhaps none of us 
get the best that we might get from our relation 
to Christ. Few of us, if any, live as well as we 
believe. The moralities that we know, we do not 
follow. The helps that are put into our hands 
we do not use when we are climbing the stiff, 
steep paths or staggering under the burdens of 
life. The comforts that religion gives do not com- 
fort us in sorrow. Many of us think of Chris- 
tianity as a system of doctrine and worship only, 
and too little as a life. The aim of this book is 
to show how doctrine should become life, how 



6 DEDICATORY. 

promises should be rod and staff in the climber's 
hand, and how the Sabbath-life should pour itself 
through all the week-days, making every hour 
bright with the radiance of heaven. It is dedi- 
cated to those who sincerely want to follow all 
the precepts and to realize in their own expe- 
rience all the joys, inspirations and comforts of 
religion, and to fulfill in this world the meaning 
of life in all its splendor and possibility. 



Week-Day Religion. 



i. 

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 

"A sacred burden is the life ye bear. 
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly; 
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly; 
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, 
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.' 



W 



HAT one thinks about life, what conception 
he has of that strange thing called exist- 
ence — particularly what he thinks of his own indi- 
vidual life — is a most vital matter. Life is noble 
or ignoble, glorious or groveling, just as a right 
or wrong, a high or a low, conception is cherished 
in the heart. No man builds higher or better than 
his plans. No artist surpasses in marble or on 
canvas the beauty imaged in his soul, and no 
one's life can rise in grandeur above the thoughts 
of life which live in his heart. 

No conception is true or worthy which does not 



8 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

consider life in its perspective, not as cut off and 
limited by the bounds of earthly existence, but 
as stretching away into immortality and vital at 
every point with important relations and solemn 
responsibilities. We are more than animals. Oar 
lives are not little separate atoms of existence each 
one complete in itself and independent of all other 
atoms. He plans very shortsightedly who has no 
outlook from his hut in his narrow island-home 
in the great wide sea, and who sees no existence 
for himself beyond the stoppage of his heart's 
pulses — that strange experience which men call 
death. 

We can only learn to live worthily when we 
take into our view and plan all the unending years 
that lie beyond the grave. We want a vivid and 
masterful consciousness of our personal immortality. 
A man who sees but a few bits of rock chipped 
from El Capitan, and a few dried leaves and faded 
flowers plucked from the trees that grow in that 
wondrous valley, has no true conception of the 
grandeur of the Yosemite; and no more just con- 
ception of human existence in its fullness and vast- 
ness has he who sees only the little fragment of 
broken, marred and shattered years which are ful- 
filled on this earth. We must try to see life as 



WHAT IS YOUE LIFE? 9 

sweeping away into eternity if we would grasp 
its meaning and have a true sense of its grandeur 
or realize its solemn responsibility. 

There are streams among the mountains which, 
after flowing a little way on the surface in a cur- 
rent broken, vexed and tossing, amid rocks, over 
cascades, through dark chasms, sink away out of 
sight and seem to be lost. You see their flash- 
ing crystal no more. But far down the mountain, 
amid the sweet valley scenes, they emerge again, 
these same streams, and flow away, no longer 
tossed and restless, but quiet and peaceful as they 
move on toward the sea. So our restless, perplexed 
lives roll in rocky channels a little way on the 
earth and then pass out of sight and it seems the 
end. But it is not the end. Leaping through the 
dark cavern of the grave, they w T ill reappear, fuller, 
deeper, grander, on the other side, vexed and broken 
no longer, but realizing all the peace, joy and beauty 
of Christ; and thus they will flow on for ever. 
This is no poet's fancy, no Utopian dream of a 
golden age, no mere picture of imagination. Life 
and immortality are brought to light in the gospel. 
Since Christ has risen again death is abolished, and 
to every one who believes in him there is the cer- 
tainty of an endless life of blessedness in his pres- 



10 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

ence and service. We only begin to live when the 
consciousness of immortality breaks upon our hearts. 

Then there is another element in every true con- 
ception of life which is equally essential. No life 
hangs in mid-air, without relations, connections or 
attachments, without dependences and responsibil- 
ities. A man may not tear himself out of the 
web of humanity and pass all his years on some 
solitary island in the sea, cutting every tie, casting 
off all responsibility, living without reference to 
God or man, law or duty, and fulfill in any sense 
the true meaning of life. 

In every direction there are cords of attachment 
which reach out and bind every fragment of human- 
ity fast in one great web; and these attachments 
are inextricable. We may ignore them, but we 
cannot break one of them. We may be disloyal 
to every one of them, but we cannot cut one thread 
of obligation. 

A little reflection will show us what these con- 
nections are. Whence are we ? What is the origin 
of this life we bear about with us ? What are our 
relations to God the Creator? Our life sprang 
from his hand. Not only so, but it is dependent 
upon him. No more does the trembling leaf hang 
upon the bough and depend upon it for support 



WHAT IS YOUR LIFEf 11 

and very life than does every human life hang 
upon God, depending upon him for stay and sup- 
port and for its momentary existence. 

Then, as we think of ourselves as Christians, 
this thought is infinitely deepened. What is a 
Christian life ? We are accustomed to say that it 
is a life redeemed by Christ's death. More closely 
defined, it is a life that is taken up out of the ruin 
of sin and attached to the life of Christ. Apart 
from him men are but dead and withering branches 
having no life, but when attached to him they 
become living branches covered with leaves and 
fruit. As we think of it we see Christ as the 
one great central Life of the world and ourselves 
living only in him, our little fragment of being 
utterly dependent upon him for every beauty, bless- 
ing and hope. We live only in him. He takes 
our sins and gives us his righteousness. He takes 
our weakness and unites it, like a branch grafted 
upon a tree, to his own glorious fullness of strength. 
Our emptiness he attaches to his divine complete- 
ness. Our lives feed upon him, and are in every 
sense dependent upon him. We have nothing and 
we are nothing which we do not receive from him. 

Out of this relation come the most binding and 
farreaching obligations to God — obligations of 



12 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

gratitude, praise, trust, obedience, service. Our 
life is not in any sense our own. Its purpose is 
not fulfilled unless it is lived to accomplish the 
end for which it was created and redeemed. We 
begin to study the Scriptures and to ask what is 
the chief end of life, and we have not to read be- 
tween the lines to find the answer. Everything 
has been made with some design. Even a grain 
of sand has its uses. It helps build up the moun- 
tain, or it forms part of the great wall that holds 
the sea in its place, or it helps by its infinitesimal 
weight to balance the system of worlds. A drop 
of water has its purposes and uses. Creeping into 
the bosom of the drooping flower or sinking down 
to its roots, it revives it. It may help to quench 
the thirst of a dying soldier. It may paint a rain- 
bow on the clouds. It may help to float great 
ships or add its little plash to the chorus of ocean's 
majestic music. 

"Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain 
Hath its own mission; 
The very shadow of an insect's wing — 

For which the violet cared not while it stayed, 
Yet felt the lighter for it vanishing — 

Proves that the sun was shining by its shade." 

And if such minute things have their purpose, how 



WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 13 

grand must be the end for which each human life 
was made ! 

We think further, and we find a wondrous net- 
work of attachments binding our little fragments 
of being to the great web of life around us. There 
are a thousand relationships which link us to our 
fellow-men, to home, to church, to country, to so- 
ciety, to truth, to humanity, to duty; and every 
one of these connections implies responsibility. 
Obligations touch our lives on all sides. Duties 
come to us from every point. Every human rela- 
tionship is solemn with its weight of responsibility. 

We think again, and we find that we are in a 
world in which our minutest acts start results that 
go on for ever. The little ripple caused by the 
plash of the boy's oar in the quiet bay goes roll- 
ing on and on until it breaks on every distant shore 
of the ocean; the word spoken in the air causes 
reverberations which go quivering on for ever in 
space ; and these scientific facts are but feeble illus- 
trations of the influences of human actions and 
words in this world. 



"Our many deeds, the thoughts that we have thought, 
They go out from us, thronging every hour, 
And in them all is folded up a power 

That on the earth doth move them to and fro ; 



1 4 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

And mighty are the marvels they have wrought 
In hearts we know not, and may never know." 

This fact charges every moment with most in- 
tense interest. The very air about us is vital, 
and carries the secret pulsations and the most un- 
conscious influences of our lives far abroad; and 
not only so, but these influences sweep away into 
eternity. There is not a moment of our life which 
does not exert a power that shall be felt millions 
of ages hence. There is something about the 
vitality and the immortality of human influence 
that is fearful to contemplate and that makes it a 
grandly solemn thing to live, especially when we 
remember that these qualities belong to the evil as 
well as the good of our lives. 

" The deeds we do, the words we say, 
Into thin air they seem to fleet; 
We count them ever past, 
But they shall last : 
In the dread judgment they 
And we shall meet." 

We think once more, and we find that life has 
another attachment — forward to the bar of God. 
We must render account for all the deeds done 
in the body. We read more deeply into the divine 
revelation, and learn that this accountability extends 
to all the minutest acts and words and thoughts 



WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 15 

that drop from hand and lip and heart as we move 
along. It even reaches to the unconscious influ- 
ences that breathe out from us like the fragrance 
of a flower. We must meet our whole life again 
before God's throne, and give account not only for 
what we have done, evil and good, but also for 
all that we ought to have done — for the unde- 
veloped possibilities of our lives and their unim- 
proved opportunities. 

It is in the light of such facts as these that we 
must regard the life that is given to each of us. 
It is indeed a sacred burden. It is no light and 
easy thing so to live as to fulfill the end for which 
we were made and redeemed. Life is no mere 
play. Every moment of it is intensely real and 
charged with eternal responsibility. It is when 
we look at life in this way that we see our need 
of Christ. Apart from him there can be only fail- 
ure and ruin. But if we give ourselves to him, he 
takes up our poor perishing fragment of being, 
cleanses it, puts his own life into it, and nurtures 
it for a glorious immortality. 

Under a plain marble monument sleeps the dust 
of one of God's dearest children,* who gave her 

* Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary. She 
used to give to the girls in her graduating classes this motto 



16 WEEK- DAY RELIGION. 

life to his cause in unwearying service till its last 
power was exhausted. Cut in the stone that marks 
her last resting-place is this memorable sentence 
from her own lips, which tells the secret of her 
consecration : " There is nothing in the universe 
that I fear except that I may not know all my 
duty, or may fail to do it." With such a sense 
of personal responsibility pressing upon the heart 
at every moment, life cannot fail to be beautiful 
and w r ell rounded here, and to pass to a corona- 
tion of glory hereafter. 

also : " My dear girls, when you choose your fields of labor, go 
where nobody else is willing to go." 



II. 

GETTING HELP FROM THE BIBLE. 

/"OFTENTIMES young Christians say, "I can- 
^-^ not find the beautiful things in the Bible, nor 
can I acquire a taste or relish for it. I want to 
love it and to use it so as to receive help from it, 
but it does not open its riches to me. I appreciate 
the wealth and beauties which others find in it and 
point out to me, but when I look for them they do 
not discover themselves to me. After I have read 
a chapter and found nothing beautiful or helpful, 
another will read it and point out the sweetest bits 
of beauty and the rarest words and suggestions of 
comfort and helpfulness, not one of which I had 
seen. They seem to have hidden from me, like 
coy birds amid the branches, but when another 
came they flew out, and in their shining plumage 
sat on the boughs or perched on his shoulder and 
sang snatches of heavenly song. I read the book, 
but I confess that it yields me no honey, no food, 
no wine of life." 

2 17 



18 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

It is quite possible that this experience is more 
common than we think or than many are honest 
enough to confess. There are few, if any, who 
find in the Bible all the beauty and blessing that 
lie in its pages. Not one of us gets from it the 
utmost possible of help, and no doubt most of 
us in our reading pass by many rare and precious 
things which we fail to see at all. 

Yet it surely need not be a sealed book to any 
one. It does not aim to hide its good things away 
so that men cannot easily find them. It is not in- 
tended to be a book that great scholars only can 
understand. No doubt a knowledge of the Ian- 
guages in which the Bible was originally written 
explains many an obscure passage and resolves 
many a difficulty, yet it is not a book for the 
learned alone, but for the unlettered and the little 
children as well. In proof of this we have only 
to remember that oftentimes those who find the 
richest treasures and the sweetest joys in the Scrip- 
tures are not the greatest scholars and the grandest 
intellects, but God's little ones, strangers to the 
world's lore and ignorant of its wisdom. 

Very much depends upon the spirit with which 
we come to the Bible. In the minds of many 
Protestants there is almost as much superstition 



GETTING HELP FROM THE BIBLE. 19 

regarding this sacred book as there is among Ro- 
manists regarding the crucifix or rosary. Soldiers 
entering a battle fling away their cards and put 
Bibles in their pockets. They feel that they are 
safer then. Many think if they read a certain 
portion every day, though they give no thought 
to the meaning, that they have done a holy service 
and are safe for the day. But the mere reading 
of so many chapters does no one any good. It 
would be as well to say Latin prayers and fumble 
over a string of beads for ten minutes. To receive 
blessing from the Bible it must be read thought- 
fully w r ith inquiry and meditation. It must be 
allowed to read itself into our heart and life. 

As to the method of reading, several suggestions 
may be made. It is important to have a good copy 
of the Bible, well bound, with clear, plain type 
and with references. On many passages there is 
no commentary so helpful as the reading of the 
references. Scripture interprets Scripture. Hence, 
a copy without references is shorn of much of its 
value. We want a copy, too, that will last for 
many years. A book is like a friend; it grows 
familiar and confidential with use. At first shy 
and distant, it lets us into its heart after we have 
long pored over its pages. It opens of itself to 



20 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

the choicest chapters, and it seems to carry its 
sweetest secrets on the surface for us. A Bible 
that we have long used seems to say things to us w T e 
never hear from a strange or new book. Besides, 
it is good to mark our Bible as we read it. Any 
precious passage that we find may be indicated on 
the margin by some sign or by drawing a line about 
it or under the sacred words. Thus we write our 
own spiritual history on the pages of our Bible. 
These marks are memorials, also, showing where 
we once found blessing — stones set up to mark our 
Bethels and Peniels and Ebenezers. A book thus 
read, and holding on its pages such treasures, be- 
comes in a few years inestimably sacred and pre- 
cious. Hence the importance of having at almost 
any cost the very best copy of the Bible that can 
be obtained — one that can be used for a lifetime. 
No one can afford to dispense with the old-fash- 
ioned way of reading the Bible through consecu- 
tively. It is well to do this every year. Some 
open at random and read whatever comes under 
their eye, without method or plan. Others read 
over and over a few favorite passages. In both 
cases large portions remain neglected and are never 
read at all. Reading the whole volume in course, 
in regular daily portions, we become familiar with 



GETTING HELP FROM THE BIBLE. 21 

every part, and discover the very richest things in 
places where we least expected to find any beauty 
or blessing. 

But in addition to this it is well to pursue other 
special methods. Topical reading is excellent. 
We select a subject and by the aid of concord ance, 
reference and text-book find out all the passages 
in the whole Scripture which speak of it or throw 
any light upon it. Thus we learn what are the 
doctrines of the Bible. In this way we may bring 
all the teachings of men to the bar of God's truth ; 
we may verify the doctrines of the Church; we 
may refer all questions that arise in our own minds 
as to belief or as to duty to the infallible test ; and 
thus we shall build our personal creeds, not on the 
formulated statements of theologians, but on the 
simple words of inspiration. 

In the daily life of each one there arise pecu- 
liar questions and experiences on which we want 
light or in which we need counsel and guidance. 
These should be taken at once to the divine word. 
Thus we bring the book of life into our daily 
history. We make it our counselor, our lamp, 
our guide. This leads to another method of 
reading and study which is very profitable and 
which yields great help. 



22 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

The habit of having a verse for the day has 
also been adopted by many and has been a source 
of great comfort. Either out of the morning's 
chapter or selected in some other way, let one 
verse be taken, fixed in the mind, and carried all 
through the busy day in thought and meditation. 
It will often prove a fountain of water, a bright 
lamp or a rod and staff before the day comes to 
a close. It is impossible to estimate the influence 
of a simple passage thus held all day in the 
thoughts. It keeps us from sin. It is a living 
impulse to duty. It is an angel of comfort in 
sorrow. Then its influence, as it pours its soft, 
pure light all through the life hour after hour, 
is full of inspiration, and purifies, cleanses and 
sanctifies. 

So much for methods. Still more important is 
the spirit in which we read. We must come 
to it as to the oracles of God, infallible and 
authoritative. We must hear the voice of God 
in its words. Then we must come in the spirit 
of docility, ready to be taught. Some read it, not 
to learn what they ought to believe, but to find 
in it what they themselves do believe already, to 
have their opinions confirmed or their conduct 
justified. Only those who come as little chil- 



GETTING HELP FROM THE BIBLE. 23 

dren, with teachable spirits, to hear what God 
will say, and ready to accept it however it may 
clash with their own opinions and preferences, 
can find the Bible an open book disclosing to 
them its most precious things. 

It must also be read thoughtfully, slowly and 
patiently. Many of its richest gems lie deep and 
must be digged for. It is not so much a flower- 
garden as a mine. There is a great deal of hur- 
ried, superficial reading which skims over the sur- 
face, which pauses to weigh no word, take in no 
thought, apply no lesson, and which leaves no im- 
pression, not even a memory, behind. Such read- 
ers must use a marker, or they will read the same 
chapter over and over without knowing it. 

Then it is necessary to read the Bible not alone 
to know the will of God, but that we may do it. 
If it is not the guide of our life, it is nothing to 
us. Its truths are to be applied. If we read 
the beatitudes, we are to compare ourselves with 
their divine requirements and seek to be con- 
formed to them. If we come upon a word 
that rebukes any habit or spirit of ours, we are 
straightway to make the needed amendment. We 
are to accept its promises, believe them, and act as 
believing them. We are to allow its comforts to 



24 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

enter our hearts and support us in sorrow. There 
is nothing written in the Bible merely for orna- 
ment or beauty. Every word is practical. There 
is no truth in it that has not some bearing upon 
actual living. When we come to it eager to know 
how to live and ready to obey its precepts, we 
shall find it opening to us its inmost meaning. 

We are told that the Bible must be spiritually 
discerned. Only a spiritually-minded reader finds 
the truest and best things in it. We must bring 
to it a certain kind of knowledge. This is true 
in all departments of life. Many persons never 
see anything lovely in nature. They will stand 
amid the most picturesque landscapes, walk amid 
the rarest flowers and witness the most gorgeous 
sunset splendor without a thrill of pleasure or an 
expression of admiration. They have no sympa- 
thy with nature. There are many who will pass 
through a grand art-gallery rich with paintings 
and statuary, and see nothing to seize their atten- 
tion, while others will spend days in enthusiastic 
study of the works of art that are stored there. 
Some knowledge of art and an interest in it are 
necessary to the appreciation and enjoyment of 
paintings and statues. In like manner, he that 
would find the beautiful things in the Scriptures 



GETTING HELP FROM THE BIBLE. 25 

must have a mind and heart prepared for it. 
Hence the more of the divine life we have in our 
souls, the more will the sacred pages reveal to us. 
It is not so much intellectual acumen and fine 
scholarship that we need as spiritual culture, love 
for Christ and the warmth of devotion. 

A young lady purchased a book and read a few 
pages, but was not interested in it. Some months 
afterward she met the author, and a tender friend- 
ship sprang up, ripening into love and betrothal. 
Then the book was dull no longer. Every sen- 
tence had a charm for her heart. Love was the 
interpreter. So to those who do not know Christ 
personally the Bible seems dry and uninteresting. 
But when they learn to know him and to love 
him all is changed ; and the deeper their love for 
him becomes, the more do the sacred pages glow 
with beauty and light. 

It is good to store away in our hearts, all along 
the bright years of youth, the precious truths of 
God's word. In visiting the Mammoth Cave they 
placed lamps in our hands before we entered. It 
seemed a very useless and needless thing to carry 
these pale lights while we walked in the full blaze 
of noonday. But we moved down the bank and 
entered the cavern's mouth. Quickly the splendor 



26 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of daylight faded out, and then the lamp-flames 
began to shine brightly. We soon found how 
valuable they were, and how necessary. Without 
them we should have been lost in the thick gloom 
and in the inextricable mazes of the cave. So 
God's promises and comforts may not seem need- 
ful to us in the brightness of youth and in the 
days of health and gladness. They may then 
seem to shine with but a pale light. But as we 
move on we shall pass into shadows — the shadows 
of sickness, of trial, of disappointment, of sorrow 
— and then their beauty and splendor will shine 
out and prove the very joy and strength of our 
souls. 



III. 

PRACTICAL CONSECRATION. 

" I used to chafe and fret when interrupted in favorite pur- 
suits, but I have learned that my time all belongs to God, and 
I just leave it in his hands. It is very sweet to use it for him 
when he has anything for me to do, and pleasant to use it for 
myself when he has not." — Mrs. Prentiss. 

A GREAT deal of our talk about consecration 
-*--**- is very vague and visionary. We are told 
that we should make an unreserved transfer of our- 
selves to Christ, and we want to do it. We wish 
to keep nothing back from him. We adopt the 
formula of consecration when we connect our- 
selves with the church. We use the liturgy of 
consecration continually in our prayers, saying 
over and over again — sincerely enough, too — that 
we give ourselves wholly to Christ. We sing 
with glowing heart and flowing tears the rapturous 
hymns of consecration, and yet, somehow, we are 
not wholly consecrated to Christ. Saying it, pray- 

27 



28 week-day religion. 

ing it, singing it, ever so honestly and with ever 
so endless repetition, we are still painfully conscious 
of failure in fact, and we become discouraged, 
sometimes even doubting altogether the reality of 
our conversion because we cannot consciously 
keep ourselves on the altar. 

One trouble is that the consecration we aim at 
is emotional rather than practical. Then another 
is that we try to accomplish too much at once. 
We attempt to make over all our life, in its end- 
lessly varied relations, and all our present and 
future, once for all in a single offering, and then 
it seems to our limited experience that that 
should be final. The spirit and intention are right 
enough, but the fact is that in actual life such 
consecration is quite impracticable. Theoretically 
it is correct, but in experience it will always be 
found vague and unsatisfactory. The only truly 
practical consecration is that which seeks to cover 
the actual present. However fully we may have 
given ourselves to Christ at conversion, it will 
avail nothing unless we renew it with each sep- 
arate act and duty as it presents itself to us. 

Consecration may be greatly simplified and may 
be made intensely practical if we bring it down 
to a daily matter, attempting to cover no more 



PRACTICAL CONSECRATION. 29 

than the one day, and if we each morning formally 
give the day to the Lord, to be occupied as he may 
wish, surrendering all our plans to him, to be set 
aside or affirmed by him as he may choose. 

For example, I seek in the morning to give 
myself to my Master for that day, saying, " Take 
me, Lord, and use me to-day as thou wilt. I lay 
all my plans at thy feet. Whatever work thou 
hast for me to do, give it into my hands. If there 
are those thou wouldst have me help in any way, 
send them to me or send me to them. Take my 
time and use it just as thou wilt." I think no 
farther on than to-day. I make no attempt to 
give months and years to Christ. Why should I, 
before they are mine ? I have this one brief day 
only, and how can I consecrate that which I have 
not yet received? 

This formula of consecration is a transfer of 
one's plans and ambitions into the hands of Christ. 
It is a solemn pledge, too, to accept the plans of 
the Master for the occupation of the day, no mat- 
ter how much they may interfere with arrange- 
ments we have already made, or how many pleas- 
ant things they may cut out of the day's pro- 
gramme. We will answer every call. We will 
patiently submit to every interruption. We will 



30 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

accept every duty. We will go on with the work 
which seems best to us if the Master has nothing 
else for us to do ; but if he has, we will cheerfully 
drop our own and take up that which he clearly 
gives instead. 

So, sometimes, the very first one to come to me 
in the golden hours of the morning, which are so 
precious to every student, is a book-agent, or a 
man with fountain-pens or stove-polish, or per- 
chance only a pious idler who has no errand but 
to pass an hour, or it may be one of those social 
newsvenders who like to be the first to retail all 
the freshest gossip. Interrupted thus in the midst 
of some interesting and important work, my first 
impulse is to chafe and fret, and perhaps to give 
my visitor a cold welcome, not hiding my annoy- 
ance. But then I remember my morning conse- 
cration. Did I not put my plans and my time 
out of my own hands into my Master's ? Did I 
not ask him to send me any work he had for me 
to do, and to make use of me in ministering to 
others as he would ? If I was sincere and would 
be loyal to my words, must I not accept this 
early caller as sent to me for some help or some 
good which it is in my power to impart to him ? 
If I would carry out the spirit of my consecra- 



PRACTICAL CONSECRATION. 31 

tion, I must neither chafe, nor fret, nor manifest 
any annoyance at the interruption, nor do aught 
to give needless pain to my visitor. 

I have an errand to thee, O man my brother ! 
What it is I know not. Perhaps here is a heavy 
heart that I can cheer by a few kindly words. I 
cannot buy anything. I cannot give up an hour 
to hear my friend recount, for the hundredth time, 
the story of his past exploits. I cannot listen to 
the wretched gossip which my mischievous visitor 
wants to empty into my ear ; and yet may I not 
have an errand to each? It may be that I can 
send my literary friend away with a little bit of 
song in his heart. He came from a very dreary 
home this morning. He is poor. He has gone from 
house to house, only to have door after door rudely 
shut in his face. He is heavy-hearted, almost in 
despair. He greatly needs money, which perhaps 
I cannot give to him, but he needs far more. Just 
now a brother's sympathy — which I can give — and 
a kind, cordial reception, a few minutes' patient 
interest shown in listening to his story, a few 
encouraging words, any suggestion or help I may 
be able to give, will do him more good than if I 
were to buy a book in the usual unchristian way in 
such cases. Or may I not be able to drop some 



32 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

useful word into the ear of the idler or of the gos- 
sipmonger which may be remembered? I must, 
at least, regard my visitor as sent to me with some 
need that I can supply, or wanting some comfort or 
blessing which I can impart. 

Or the errand may be the other way. He may 
have been sent to me with a benediction. All 
duty is not giving ; we need to receive as well. 
We ought to get some good from every one we 
meet. God can oftentimes teach us more by inter- 
rupting our quiet hours and by setting all our pet 
plans aside than if he had left us to spend the 
time over our book or in our work. 

Let us at least beware that we do not bow out of 
our door with fretted frown one whom God has sent 
to us either with a message or a benediction for us, 
which must be carried on to some other, since we 
reject it. For even in these prosaic days Heaven 
sends angels, though they may come unawares, not 
wearing their celestial robes, but disguised in unat- 
tractive garb. 

Such a simple consecration is easily understood, 
and becomes very practical as we carry it out in 
life. It deals with living in its details, and not in 
the mass — in the concrete, and not merely in the 
abstract. It is not theory alone, but practice also. 



PRACTICAL CONSECRATION. 33 

And it seems easier to give just one short day at a 
time than to try to span far-stretching years in our 
consecration. A day is a short reach. We can 
bear almost any burden or interruption for so brief 
a period. Then it gives a holy meaning to the 
common week-day routine of work and contact 
with other lives to live in this simple way. All 
work is divinely allotted, and the voice of our lov- 
ing Lord is heard calling us at every turn. It im- 
parts a sacredness to all our meetings — even our 
most casual meetings with others. There is no 
chance that the eternal God does not guide. You 
have an errand to every one who comes in your 
path, or he has an errand to you. You may be 
very weary, but if there is a call for Christlike 
ministry you must obey it. You may have your 
wrapper and slippers on after a hard day's work, 
and outside it may be dark and stormy. But no 
matter ; either you must withdraw your morning's 
consecration, or you must follow the voice that 
calls you to deeds of mercy and love. 

If we learn well this lesson, it takes the drudg- 
ery out of all duties. It lifts up the commonest 
intercourse of life into blessed service at Christ's 
feet. It makes us patient and gentle when dealing 
with the most disagreeable people. It imparts a 



34 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

high, a divine, motive to all friendship and com- 
panionship. It teaches us patience amid the in- 
terruptions and disarrangements of our plans. It 
disciplines our wayward wills in little things and 
brings them into subjection to Christ. It takes the 
frivolity out of our conversation. It makes us 
ever watchful of our influence over others and of 
our treatment of them. It makes us ever ready 
and eager both to receive and impart help and 
blessing. Then it makes consecration to Christ not 
a dim, far-away, merely theoretical thing, but a liv- 
ing, practical experience which charges all life with 
meaning, and which takes hold of the most com- 
monplace things in our prosaic week-day routine, 
transforming them into beautiful ministries around 
the feet of God. 



IV. 

HELPS FOR WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 

" If only we strive to be pure and true, 

To each of us all there will come an hour 
When the tree of life shall burst into flower, 
And rain at our feet the glorious dower 
Of something grander than ever we knew." 

T~¥TE have only successfully acquired the art of 
^ " living a Christian life when we have learned 
to apply the principles of religion and enjoy its 
help and comfort in our daily life. It is easy to 
join in devotional exercises, to quote promises, to 
extol the beauty of the Scriptures ; but there are 
many who do these things whose religion utterly 
fails them in the very places and at the very times 
when it ought to prove their staff and stay. 

All of us must go out from the sweet services of 
the Sabbath into a week of very real and very pro- 
saic life. We must mingle with people that are 
not angels. We must pass through experiences 
that will naturally worry and vex us. Those 
about us, either wittingly or unwittingly, annoy and 

35 



36 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

try us. Many a young Christian must mingle with 
those who do not love Christ. Every one meets 
many anxieties and worries in ordinary week-day 
life. There are continual irritations and annoy- 
ances. 

The problem is to live a beautiful Christian life 
in the face of all these hindrances. How can we 
get through the tangled briers which grow along 
our path without having our hands and feet torn 
by them ? How can we live sweetly amid the 
vexing and irritating things and the multitude of 
little worries and frets which infest our way, and 
which we cannot evade? 

It is not enough merely to get along in any sort 
of way, to drag to the close of each long, weari- 
some day, happy when night comes to end the 
strife. Life should be a joy, and not a burden. 
We should live victoriously, ever master of our ex- 
periences, and not tossed by them like a leaf on 
the dashing waves. Every earnest Christian wants 
to live a truly beautiful life, whatever the circum- 
stances may be. 

A little child, when asked what it was to be a 
Christian, replied, " For me to be a Christian is to 
live as Jesus would live and behave as Jesus 
would behave if he were a little girl and lived at 



HELPS FOR WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 37 

our house/' No better definition of practical re- 
ligion could be given. Each one of us is to bear 
himself just as Jesus would if he were living out 
our little life in the midst of its actual environment, 
standing all day just where we stand, mingling 
with the same people with whom we must mingle, 
and exposed to the very annoyances, trials and 
provocations to which we are exposed. We want 
to live a life that will please God, and that will 
bear witness on its face to the genuineness of our 
piety. 

How can we do this ? We must first recognize 
the fact that our life must be lived just in its own 
circumstances. We cannot at present change our 
surroundings. Whatever we are to make of our 
lives must be made in the midst of our actual ex- 
periences. Here we must either win our victories 
or suffer our defeats. We may think our lot hard 
and may wish it were otherwise, that we had a life 
of ease and luxury, amid softer scenes, with no 
briers or thorns, no worries or provocations. Then 
we should be always gentle, patient, serene, trustful, 
happy. How delightful it would be never to have 
a care, an irritation, a cross, a single vexing thing ! 

But meanwhile this fact remains — that our aspi- 
ration cannot be realized, and that whatever our life 



38 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

is to be made, beautiful or marred, we must make 
it just where we are. No restless discontent can 
change our lot. We cannot get into any elysium 
merely by longing for it. Other persons may have 
other circumstances, possibly more pleasant than 
ours, but here are ours. We may as well settle 
this point at once and accept the battle of life on 
this field, else, while we are vainly wishing for a 
better chance, the opportunity for victory shall 
have passed. 

The next thought is that the place in which we 
find ourselves is the place in which the Master de- 
sires us to live our life. 

"Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident: 
It is the very place God meant for thee." 

There is no haphazard in this world. God leads 
every one of his children by the right way. He 
knows where and under what influences each par- 
ticular life will ripen best. One tree grows best 
in the sheltered valley, another by the water's 
edge, another on the bleak mountain-top swept by 
storms. There is always adaptation in nature. 
Every tree or plant is found in the locality where 
the conditions of its growth exist, and does God 
give more thought to trees and plants than to his 



HELPS FOB WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 39 

own children? He places us amid the circum- 
stances and experiences in which our life will 
grow and ripen the best. The peculiar discipline 
to which we are each subjected is the discipline 
we severally need to bring out in us the beauties 
and graces of true spiritual character. We are in 
the right school. We may think that we would 
ripen more quickly in a more easy and luxurious 
life, but God knows what is best; he makes no 
mistakes. 

There is a little fable which says that a prim- 
rose growing by itself in a shady corner of the 
garden became discontented as it saw the other 
flowers in their gay beds in the sunshine, and 
begged to be removed to a more conspicuous 
place. Its prayer was granted. The gardener 
transplanted it to a more showy and sunny spot. 
It was greatly pleased, but there came a change 
over it immediately. Its blossoms lost much of 
their beauty and became pale and sickly. The hot 
sun caused them to faint and wither. So it prayed 
again to be taken back to its old place in the shade. 
The wise gardener knows best where to plant each 
flower, and so God, the divine Husbandman, knows 
where his people will best grow into what he would 
have them to be. Some require the fierce storms, 



40 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

some will only thrive spiritually in the shadow of 
worldly adversity, and some come to ripeness more 
sweetly under the soft and gentle influences of 
prosperity whose beauty rough experiences would 
mar. He knows what is best for each one. 

The next thought is that it is possible to live a 
beautiful life anywhere. There is no position in 
this world in the allotment of Providence in 
which it is not possible to be a true Christian 
exemplifying all the virtues of Christianity. The 
grace of Christ has in it potency enough to enable 
us to live well wherever we are called to dwell. 
When God chooses a home for us, he fits us for 
its peculiar trials. There is a beautiful law of 
compensation that runs through all God's provi- 
dence. Animals made to dwell amid Arctic snows 
are covered with warm furs. The camel's home 
is the desert, and a wondrous provision is made 
by which it can endure long journeys across the 
hot sands without drink. Birds are fitted for their 
flights in the air. Animals made to live among 
the mountain-crags have feet prepared for climbing 
over the steep rocks. In all nature this law of 
special equipment and preparation for allotted 
places prevails. 

And the same is true in spiritual life. God 



HELPS FOR WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 41 

adapts his grace to the peculiarities of each one's 
necessity. For rough, flinty paths he provides 
shoes of iron. He never sends any one to climb 
sharp, rugged mountain-sides wearing silken slip- 
pers. He gives always grace sufficient. As the 
burdens grow heavier the strength increases. As 
the difficulties thicken the angel draws closer. As 
the trials become sorer the trusting heart grows 
calmer. Jesus always sees his disciples when they 
are toiling in the waves, and at the right moment 
comes to deliver them. Thus it becomes possible 
to live a true and victorious life in any circum- 
stances. Christ can as easily enable Joseph to 
remain pure and true in heathen Egypt as Ben- 
jamin in the shelter of his father's love. The 
sharper the temptations, the more of divine grace 
is granted. There is, therefore, no environment 
of trial or difficulty or hardship in which we 
cannot live beautiful lives of Christian fidelity 
and approved conduct. 

Instead, then, of yielding to discouragement 
when trials multiply and it becomes hard to live 
right, or of being satisfied with a broken peace 
and a very faulty life, it should be the settled pur- 
pose of each one to live, through the grace of God, 
a patient, gentle and unspotted life in the place 






42 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

and amid the circumstances allotted. The true 
victory is not found in escaping or evading trials, 
but in rightly meeting and enduring them. The 
questions should not be, " How can I get out of 
these worries? How can I get into a place where 
there shall be no irritations, nothing to try my 
temper or put my patience to the test ? How can 
I avoid the distractions that continually harass 
me?" There is nothing noble in such living. 
The soldier who flies to the rear when he smells 
the battle is no hero; he is a coward. 

The questions should rather be, "How can I 
pass through these trying experiences and not fail 
as a Christian? How can I endure these strug- 
gles and not suffer defeat? How can I live amid 
these provocations, these reproaches and testings 
of my temper, and yet live sweetly, not speaking 
unadvisedly, bearing injuries meekly, returning 
gentle answers to insulting words ?" This is the 
true problem of Christian living. 

We are at school here. This life is discipli- 
nary. Processes are not important: it is results 
we want. If a tree grow into majesty and strength, 
it matters not whether it be in the deep vale or on 
the cold peak, whether calm or storm nurture it. 
If character develop into Christlike symmetry, 



HELPS FOR WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 43 

what does it matter whether it be in ease and luxury 
or through hardship? The important matter is not 
the process, but the result — not the means, but the 
end ; and the end of all Christian nurture is spirit- 
ual loveliness. To be made truly noble and godlike 
we should be willing to submit to any discipline. 

Every obstacle to true living should, then, only 
nerve us with fresh determination to succeed. We 
should use each difficulty and hardship as a lever- 
age to gain some new advantage. We should com- 
pel our temptations to minister to us instead of 
hindering us. We shoulcl regard all our provo- 
cations, annoyances and trials, of whatever sort, 
as practice-lessons in the application of the theories 
of Christian life. It will be seen in the end that 
the hardships and difficulties are by no means the 
smallest blessings of our lives. Some one com- 
pares them to the weights of a clock, without 
which there could be no steady, orderly life. 

The tree that grows where tempests toss its 
boughs and bend its trunk, often almost to break- 
ing, is more firmly rooted than the tree which 
grows in the sequestered valley where no storm 
ever brings stress or strain. The same is true in 
life. The grandest character is grown in hard- 
ship. Effeminacy springs out of luxury. The 



44 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

best men the world ever reared have been brought 
up in the school of adversity and hardship. 

Besides, it is no heroism to live patiently where 
there is no provocation, bravely where there is no 
danger, calmly where there is nothing to per- 
turb. Not the hermit's cave, but the heart of busy 
life, tests as well as makes character. If we can 
live patiently, lovingly and cheerfully amid all 
our frets and irritations day after day, year after 
year, that is grander heroism than the farthest- 
famed military exploits, for he that ruleth his own 
spirit is better than he that taketh a city. 

This is our allotted task. It is no easy one. It 
can be accomplished only by the most resolute de- 
cision, with unwavering purpose and incessant 
watchfulness. 

Nor can it be accomplished without the contin- 
ual help of Christ. Each one's battle must be a 
personal one. We may decline the struggle, but it 
will be declining also the joy of victory. No one 
can reach the summit without climbing the steep 
mountain-path. We cannot be borne up on any 
strong shoulder. No one, not even God, can carry 
us up. Heaven does not put features of beauty 
into our lives as the jeweler sets gems in clusters 
in a coronet. The unlovely elements are not re- 



HELPS FOR WORRIED WEEK-DAYS. 45 

moved and replaced by lovely ones like slides in 
the stereopticon. Each must win his way through 
struggles and efforts to all noble attainments. The 
help of God is given only in co-operation with hu- 
man aspiration and energy. While God works in 
us, we are to work out our own salvation. He that 
overcometh shall be a pillar in the temple of God. 
We should accept the task with quiet joy. We 
shall fail many times. Many a night we shall re- 
tire to weep at Christ's feet over the day's defeat. 
In our efforts to follow the copy set for us by our 
Lord, we shall write many a crooked line and leave 
many a blotted page blistered with tears of regret. 
Yet we must keep through all a brave heart, an 
unfaltering purpose and a calm, joyful confidence 
in God. Temporary defeat should only cause us to 
lean on Christ more fully. Heaven is on the side 
of every one who is loyally struggling to do the 
divine will and to grow into Christlikeness. And 
that means assured victory to every one whose 
heart fails not. 

"If only we strive to be pure and true, 
The foam of the sea will lower its crest, 
And the weary waves that we used to breast 
Will sob and turn, and sink slowly to rest 
With a tender calm all over and through." 



V. 

THE CURE FOR CARE. 
" God writes straight on crooked lines." — Spanish Proverb. 

r 1 1HERE is no life into which do not come many 
-*- things calculated to cause anxiety and distrac- 
tion of mind. There are great sorrows ; there are 
perplexities as to duty ; there are disappointments 
and losses; there are annoyances and hindrances; 
there are chafings and irritations in ordinary life ; 
and there are countless petty cares and frets. All of 
these tend to break the heart's peace and to dis- 
turb its quiet, yet there is no lesson that is 
urged more continuously or more earnestly in the 
Scriptures than that a Christian should never 
worry or let care oppress his heart. He is to live 
without distraction and with peace unbroken even 
in the midst of the most trying experiences. 

If, then, we are never to be anxious, never to 
take distracting thought, what are we to do with 
the thousand things calculated to perplex us and 

46 



THE CURE FOR CARE. 47 

produce anxiety ? If we are not to take thought 
about these matters, who will do it for us ? Who 
is to think for us ? Who is to unravel the tangles 
for our unskilled fingers? When cares and anx- 
ieties come to our hearts, what are we to do with 
them? 

Some one may say that it is impossible to avoid 
worrying. The disturbing experiences will come 
into our lives, and we cannot shut them out. It is 
true they will come, but it is not true that we must 
admit them and surrender ourselves to their power. 
It was a saying of Luther that we cannot prevent 
the birds flying about our heads, but we can pre- 
vent them building their nests in our hair. In 
like manner, it is impossible to keep cares from 
flocking in great swarms around us, but it is our 
own fault if they are allowed to make nests in our 
hearts. We are to hold our hearts' doors and win- 
dows shut against them just as resolutely as against 
the temptations that constantly assail us, craving 
admission into our lives. 

This applies to all our worries, whether great or 
small. We are apt to say, " Oh yes, but my trial 
is peculiar. It is one of those that cannot be kept 
out, laid down or cast off." But there is no such 
exception made in the divine plan of living 



48 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

marked out for us in the inspired word. Anxiety 
or distraction is never to be admitted. Nothing, 
small or great, is to disturb our peace. We may- 
have sorrow or suffering or toil or painful stress 
and strain, but never worry. 

What, then, is the divine life-plan ? What are 
we to do with our cares ? 

Everything that threatens to give us anxiety is 
to be taken at once to God. Nothing is too great 
to carry to him. Does not he bear up all worlds ? 
Does not he rule over all the affairs of the uni- 
verse ? Is there any matter in our life, how great 
soever it may seem to us, too hard for him to man- 
age? Is any perplexity too sore for him to re- 
solve ? Is any human despair too dark for him to 
illumine with hope ? Is there any tangle or con- 
fusion out of which he cannot extricate us? Or 
is anything too small to bring to him ? Is he not 
our Father, and is he not interested in whatever 
concerns us? There is not one of the countless 
things that fly like specks of dust all through our 
daily life, tending to vex and fret us, that we 
may not take to God. And this is the cure which 
the Scriptures prescribe for care. The divine phil- 
osophy of living says, " Be anxious for nothing, but 
make everything known to God ; in everything, by 



THE CUBE FOB CABE. 49 

prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
known unto God." Refer every disturbing thing 
to him that he may bear the burden of it. 

" But why should I have to make it known to 
him?" asks some one. "He knows all about it 
already. Why must I take it to him?" It is 
reason enough that he has asked us to do it ; and if 
we will not make it known to him, can we complain 
if he does not help us ? He wants us to learn to 
confide in him and to flee to him in every moment 
of perplexity or pressure. Whenever there comes 
into our experience a difficulty, an annoyance — 
anything that tends to produce irritation or anx- 
iety or alarm or confusion — we are to carry it at 
once to God. We are to get it somehow out of 
our unskilled hands and off our frail shoulder into 
the hands and over upon the shoulder of Christ. 

It is not enough to kneel down and make a 
prayer, nor is it enough to pray about the par- 
ticular matter that worries us, asking for help or 
deliverance. Only the most simple-hearted definite- 
ness in prayer will meet the need. We must bring 
the very perplexity itself and put it out of our hands 
into God's that he may work it out for us. We 
are to bring the matter as literally to him as we 
would carry a broken watch to the watchmaker's, 

4 



50 WEEK-BAY RELIGION. 

leaving it for hiin to repair and readjust. A little 
child playing with a handful of cords, when they 
begin to get into a tangle, goes at once to her 
mother that her patient fingers may unravel the 
snarl. How much better this than to pull and 
tug at the cords till the tangle becomes inextrica- 
ble ! May not many of us learn a lesson from 
the little child? Would it not be better for us, 
whenever we find the smallest entanglement in 
any of our affairs or the arising of any perplexity, 
to take it at once to God that his skillful hands 
may set it right? 

Then, having taken it to him and put it into 
his hands, we are to leave it with him; having 
gotten it off our own shoulder upon his, we are to 
allow it to remain there. But it is just at this 
point that most of us fail. We tell God about 
our worries, and then go on worrying still as if 
we had never gone to him at all or as if he 
had refused to help us. We pray about our 
cares, but do not cast them off. We make suppli- 
cation, but do not unlade our burdens. Praying 
does us no good. It makes us no more content- 
ed or submissive, or patient, or peaceful. We 
do not get the worries out of our own hands at 
all. This is the vital point in the whole matter. 



THE CURE FOB CARE, 51 

Or perhaps we do cast the burden upon God 
while we are praying, and feel for the moment a 
strange sense of joy in our soul. We rise and go 
a few steps as light-hearted as an angel. We have 
given God our cares to keep. But in a little while 
we have gathered up all the old burdens and anx- 
ieties again and have them once more on our own 
shoulder, and we go bowing under them, fretting 
and worrying as before. 

"A step or two on wing&d feet, 

And then I turned to share 
The burden thou hadst taken up 

Of ever-pressing care ; 
So what I would not leave with thee 

Of course I had to bear." 

But is that the best the religion of Christ can 
do for us ? Is that the full meaning of the priv- 
ilege expressed in so many golden promises in the 
Scriptures? Is a little moment's rest from anx- 
iety in the midst of long days of care all that it 
is possible for us to obtain? During the brief 
pauses of a great battle the soldiers heard a spar- 
row sing snatches of song from among the branches 
of a tree. Then, when the awful roar burst out 
again, its song was hushed. Is that the full 
meaning of the peace that Christ promises? Is 



52 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

it only a sweet bird-note now and then amid the 
long days and years of discontent and struggle? 
They sadly misread the blessed words of divine 
comfort who find nothing better than this prom- 
ise. We are permitted to roll our care entirely 
over on God and to let it stay there. We are to 
put the broken plan, the shattered hope, the tan- 
gled work, the complicated affair, into the hands 
of the God of providence, leaving the ordering 
and outcome of it to his wisdom. The provoca- 
tion, the friction, the burden that presses sorely, 
the annoyance, the hindrance, — instead of permit- 
ting ourselves to be vexed, exasperated or dis- 
turbed by them, we are quietly to turn the matter 
over to God, and then go on calmly to the next 
duty that comes to our hand. 

And, having done this, we are to cease to worry. 
We have given the perplexity to God. We have 
asked him to think for us, plan for us and take 
the ordering of the affair into his own hands. It 
is our matter, therefore, no longer, but his. Should 
we not be willing to trust him? We put our 
worldly affairs and interests into the hands of men 
and feel that they are safe. We commit our sick- 
nesses to the skill of our physician. Business com- 
plications we confide to the wisdom of our lawyer. 



THE CURE FOR CARE. 53 

A broken machine we turn over to a mechanic. Is 
not God wise enough to manage the complications 
of our lives and to bring order and beauty out of 
them ? Has he not skill enough ? Is he not our 
Father ? and will he not always do the very best 
and wisest thing for us? Should we not trust 
him and cease to be anxious about anything that 
we have committed to him ? Is not anxiety doubt ? 
and is not doubt sin ? We are to commit our way 
to the Lord, trust him and be at peace. 

The only thing that concerns us is our duty. 
God will weave the web into patterns of beauty 
unless by our follies and sins we mar it. But we 
must not hurry him. His plans are sometimes 
very long, and our impatience may mar them, as 
well as our sins. The buds of his purposes must 
not be torn open. We must wait till his fingers 
unfold them. 

" God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold : 
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. 

And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 

Where tired feet, with sandals loose, may rest, 
Where we shall clearly know and understand, 

I think that we will say, 'God knew the best.'" 



VI. 

GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

"VTO one can ponder the great theme of immor- 
■^-^ tality for an hour and not feel the stir and 
glow of a better, nobler life in him. In our more 
prosaic moods we are like men shut up in a narrow 
cell. We see for the time nothing but the little 
patch of dusty floor at our feet and the cold, 
cheerless walls that encircle us. We are occupied 
with our little round of duties. Burdens press, 
sorrows pour bitter tears into our cup, our hopes are 
shattered ; or we have our short-lived joys, we see 
our plans succeed, and play at living like children 
in their mimic fancies. Now and then we have 
intimations of a wider and more glorious world 
outside our walls, stretching away beyond the 
small circle in which we dwell. Faint voices ap- 
pear to come to us from without. Or there are 
glimmerings as if of memory, like the visionary 
gleams of a past and forgotten life, which flash 

54 



GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 55 

before us in our higher moods. In these rare mo- 
ments we seem to realize the meaning of the poet's 
sublime thought : 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar; 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God, who is our home." 

But to most of us pent up in this earthly life 
these are only merest intimations, faintest whispers, 
dreamlike suggestions. We go on living in our 
narrow sphere, oppressed by its limitations, our 
faculties and powers stunted by its gloom. 

Did you ever climb the winding staircase in the 
interior of some great monument or tower? At 
intervals, as you ascended, you came to a window 
which let in a little light, and through which, as 
you looked out, you had a glimpse of a great ex- 
panse of fair and lovely world outside the dark 
tower. You saw green fields, rich gardens, pic- 
turesque landscapes, streams flashing like flow- 
ing silver in the sunshine, the blue sea yonder, and 
far away, on the other hand, the shadowy forms of 
great mountains. How little, how dark, how poor 



56 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

and cheerless, seemed the close, narrow limits of 
your staircase as you looked out upon the illimit- 
able view that stretched from your window ! 

Life in this world is like the ascent of such a 
column. But while we climb heavily and wearily 
up its steep, dark stairway, there lies, outside the 
thick walls, a glorious world reaching away into 
eternity, beautiful and filled with the rarest things 
of God's love. And thoughts of immortality, 
when they come to us, are little windows through 
which we have glimpses of the infinite sweep and 
stretch of life beyond this hampered, broken, frag- 
mentary existence of earth. 

The doctrine of the resurrection is one of these 
windows. It opens to us a vista running away 
beyond the grave. Death is a mere episode, a 
mere experience, an incident on the way. Even 
the grave, which seems to quench all the light of 
life, is but a chamber in which we shall disrobe 
ourselves of the infirmities, blemishes and im- 
perfections of mortality and be reclothed in the 
holy, spotless vesture of immortality. Thus we 
sleep at night, and sleep seems like death ; but we 
awake in the morning, our life unharmed, unwasted, 
made fairer, fuller, fresher, stronger. Winter comes, 
and the leaves fall, the flowers fade, the plants die 



GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 57 

and snow wraps the earth in a blanket of death. 
But spring comes again, and the buds burst out 
anew, the flowers lift their heads and the grasses 
shoot up once more. From beneath the great 
drifts the gentlest and most delicate forms of life 
come as fresh and fragrant as if they had been 
nourished in a conservatory. Nature rises from the 
grave of winter in new beauty and luxuriance. In 
place of the sere leaves and faded loveliness and 
exhausted vigor of the autumn, there is now all the 
splendor of new creation. Every leaf is green, 
every pore is flowing full of vital sap, and every 
flower pours sweetest fragrance on the air. 

The grave is but life's winter, from whose dark- 
ness and chill we shall come with unwasted beauty. 
Then, away beyond this strange experience, as we 
look out at the window again, we see life going on, 
expanding, deepening, enriching. 

When the truth of immortal existence comes 
into our personal consciousness, it opens a wonder- 
ful vista before us. It gives life a new glory. It 
furnishes one of the most powerful motives for 
noble living. 

The weakness of most lives, even of most 
Christian lives, is the absence of this motive. For, 
however firmly we may cling to the truth of im- 



58 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

mortality as a belief, there are but few lives in 
which it is so realized as to be a ruling inspiration, 
a strong, masterful conviction. How it would 
widen out all our thoughts, conceptions, hopes and 
plans if the walls that divide life here and here- 
after were broken down and our eyes could see our 
own existence in perspective, stretching away into 
eternity, as real, as personal, as fraught with interest 
beyond the grave as on this side of it ! How it 
would lift up, dignify, ennoble, inspire, awaken 
and deepen all our life if we could but hold the 
truth of personal immortality in our consciousness 
all the while as vividly and as really as we hold 
to-morrow ! 

The grave would not then be the end of any- 
thing save of mortality and of the sins, weights 
and infirmities which belong to this earthly state. 
It would break up no plans. It would cut off 
nothing. If we see life only as a narrow stage 
bounded by the curtain that falls at death, ending 
there for ever, how poor and little and limited does 
existence appear ! We can have no plans that re- 
quire more than earth's brief day for their com- 
pletion. We can start no work that cannot be 
finished before the end comes. We may cherish 
no joys that will reach over into the life hereafter. 



GLIMPSES A T LIFE y S WIND OWS. 59 

We may sow no seeds that will not come to har- 
vest this side of the grave. Our souls may be 
thrilled by no aspirations and hopes that have 
their goal beyond the shadows. But how different 
if we see life with the veil torn away ! The future 
is as much in our vision and as real as the little 
present. We may begin works here which shall 
require ten thousand years to complete. There is 
no hurry, for we shall have all eternity in which to 
work. We may scatter seeds which we know 
shall not come to harvest for long ages. We may 
cherish hopes and aspirations whose goals lie far 
away in the life to come. We may endure sacri- 
fices, hardships and toils which cannot bring any 
recompense or reward in this world, knowing that 
in the long yearless future we shall find glorious 
return. 

Life may seem a failure here, crushed like a lily 
under the heel of wrong or sin, broken, trampled, 
torn. But it may yet become a glorious success. 
Many of the truest and best of God's children 
know only defeat in this world. They are ever- 
more beaten back and thrust down. The burdens 
are too heavy for them. They are overmastered 
by sorrows. The world's enmity treads them in 
the dust. They are not worldly-wise, and while 



60 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

others march by to great earthly success they live 
obscurely, oppressed, cheated, wronged, and lie 
buried away in the darkness of failure. If the 
vista did not reach beyond the bare and cold room 
in which these unsuccessful ones breathe their last, 
we might drop a tear of pity over their sad story 
of defeat. But w T hen the curtain is lifted and we 
see millions of years of existence for them on the 
other side, we dry our tears. There will be time 
enough for them to retrieve the failure of earth. 
Through the love and grace of Christ, the defeated 
Christian life that goes out in the darkness here 
may be restored to beauty and power, and in the 
long ages beyond death may realize all the hopes 
that seemed utterly wrecked in this world. 

Indeed, it may be that those who have failed 
here, as men phrase it, are the very ones who shall 
win the highest success in the after-life if they have 
kept their garments clean amid the struggles and 
toils. It has been said that heaven is probably a 
place for those who have failed on earth — for the 

"Delicate spirits pushed away 
In the hot press of the noonday." 

Certainly, for the Christian, the realization of the 
truth of immortality takes away the bitterness of 



GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 61 

earthly defeat. There will be time enough for 
victory and for the most glorious success in the 
unending eternity. 

There are lives that are cut off here before any 
of their powers are developed. A thousand hopes 
cluster about them. Dreams of greatness or of 
beauty fill the visions of loving friends. Then 
suddenly they are stricken down in the dim dawn 
or the early morning. The bud had not time to 
open out its beauties in the short summer of earthly 
existence. It is borne away still folding up in 
its close-shut calyxes all its germs and possibilities 
of power, loveliness and life. Sorrow weeps bit- 
terly over the hopes that seem blighted and cuts 
its symbols of incompleteness upon the marble; 
and yet, with the warmth of immortality pressing 
up against the gates, what matters it that the bud 
did not open here and unfold its beauties this side 
the grave? There will be time enough in hea- 
ven's long summer for every life to put out all its 
loveliness and glory. No hopes are blighted that 
are only carried forward into the immortal years. 
No life is incomplete because it is cut off too soon 
to ripen, in an earthly home, into majesty of form 
and glory of fruitage ; for death does not come to 
the Christian as a destroyer. It dims no splendor. 



62 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

It blots out no beauty. It paralyzes no power. 
It blights no bud or germ. It only takes out of 
life whatever is dull, earthly and opaque, whatever 
is corrupt and mortal, and leaves it pure, brilliant, 
glorious. 

" Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
Until death tramples it to fragments." 

Death only sweeps away the limitations, breaks 
down the walls, shatters the crust of mortality, 
washes out the stains, and then life expands into 
perfect freedom, fullness, joy and power. The 
translation of a Christian life from earth to heaven 
is but like the removal of a tender plant from a 
cold northern garden, where it is stunted and dying, 
into a tropical field, where it puts out most lux- 
uriant growths and covers itself with splendor. 

There ought to be wondrous comforting power 
in the truth of immortality for those who carry 
here the burdens of sickness, infirmity or deform- 
ity ; and there are many such. Many lovely bodies 
are full of disease ; they stagger under life's lightest 
burdens. Then there are many who carry imper- 
fect bodies, and old age comes to the strongest and 
the fairest, stealing away the strength and touch- 



GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 63 

ing the loveliness, and it fades. But the resurrec- 
tion bodv will be for ever free from disease and 
pain. There will be no decrepitude, no bowed 
forms, no pale cheeks, no wasting or decay. How 
pleasant it is to the old to know that they will get 
back their bodies with all the marks of age re- 
moved, and will begin life again with all the glow 
of immortal youth ! I believe it is Swedenborg 
who says that in heaven the oldest angels are the 
youngest. A deep truth lies here. Not only does 
age leave no marks or traces of wasting, but the 
immortal life is a growth ever toward youth and 
freshness of existence rather than toward senes- 
cence and decay. 

There is another bearing which the truth of 
immortality must have upon the life that truly 
realizes it. It is in the intensifying of all its best 
activities and powers. If there were to be no life 
after this brief existence, why should we deny our- 
selves and spend our strength in serving others? 
Why should we sacrifice our own ease and comfort 
for the sake of those who are degraded and unwor- 
thy ? How cold and hard all duty seems without 
this motive ! But when this truth of immortality 
comes and touches these austere duties, how they 
begin to glow ! The certainty of a hereafter bright 



64 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

with all manner of rewards and joys is a wondrous 
inspiration. No matter that there is no apparent 
result when we toil and sacrifice; that the word 
we speak seems to float away into oblivion; that 
the impression we seek to make on a life fades 
out while we gaze. Somewhere in the long years 
to come we shall find that not the smallest deed 
done for Christ, or the feeblest word spoken, or 
the faintest touch given, has been in vain. In the 
highest sense — higher than the old artist dreamed 
of — do we work for eternity. In a truer and deeper 
way than we know, and in remoter ages than we 
can count, shall we find our songs from beginning 
to end in the hearts of our friends. In frescoing, 
when the artist lays on his colors they sink away 
and leave no trace, but they reappear by and by in 
beauty. So we touch lives to-day and there is no 
impression that we can see. The very memory 
seems to fade out. But in eternity it will be man- 
ifest. The brightest clouds in the glowing west 
lose their splendor while you gaze, but work done 
in human souls will appear in unfading hues, 
brightening for ever. 

Thus the glimpses we get through the little dim 
windows in the walls of our earthly life should 
give a new meaning to our existence here and to 



GLIMPSES AT LIFE'S WINDOWS. 65 

all our multiplied relationships. With immortality 
glowing before us, our brief years on earth should 
be marked by earnestness, reverence, love and faith- 
fulness. Soon we shall break out of our narrow 
circle and traverse the boundless fields that we see 
now only in the far-away and momentary glimpse. 
But it will be a blessed thing if we can get into 
our hearts even here something of the personal 
consciousness of our immortality, with its limitless 
possessions and possibilities, and feel something in 
our souls of the power of an endless life. 



VII. 

THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 

" In the long years liker must they grow : 
The man be more of woman, she of man; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward eare : 
Move as the double-natured poet each 
Till at the last she set herself to man 
Like perfect music unto noble words." — Longfellow. 

rilHE preparations are all at last made. The 
-*- bridal trousseau is completed. The day has 
been fixed. The cards have gone out. The hour 
comes. Two young hearts are throbbing with love 
and joy. A brilliant company, music, flowers, a 
solemn hush as the happy pair approach the altar, 
the repetition of the sacred words of the marriage 
ceremony, the clasping of hands, the mutual cov- 
enants and promises, the giving and receiving of 
the ring, the final "Whom God hath joined to- 
gether, let not man put asunder," the prayer and 
benediction, — and they twain are one flesh. There 

66 



THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 67 

are tears and congratulations, hurried good-byes, a 
bridal tour, and a new bark puts out upon the sea 
freighted with high hopes. God grant it may 
never be dashed upon any hidden rock and 
wrecked ! 

Marriage is very like the bringing together of 
two instruments of music. The first thing is to 
get them keyed to the same pitch. Before a con- 
cert begins you hear the musicians striking chords 
and keying their instruments, until at length they 
all perfectly accord. Then they come out and 
play some rare piece of music without a discord or 
a jar in any of its parts. 

No two lives, however thorough their former 
acquaintance may have been, however long they 
may have moved together in society or mingled in 
the closer and more intimate relations of a ripening 
friendship, ever find themselves perfectly in har- 
mony on their marriage-day. It is only when that 
mysterious blending begins after marriage which 
no language can explain that each finds so much 
in the other that was never discovered before. 
There are beauties and excellences that were never 
disclosed, even to love's partial eye, in all the days 
of familiar intimacy. There are peculiarities which 
were never seen to exist until they began to make 



68 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

themselves manifest within the veil of the matri- 
monial temple. There are incompatibilities that 
were never dreamed of till they were revealed in 
the attrition of domestic life. There are faults 
which neither even suspected in the temper and 
habits of the other. 

Before marriage young people are on their good 
behavior. They do not exhibit their infirmities. 
Selfishness is hidden under garments of courtesy 
and gallantry. Each forgets self in romantic de- 
votion to the other. The voice is softened and 
made tender, and even tremulous, by love. The 
music flows with a holy rhythm mellowed by af- 
fection's gentleness. Everything that would make 
an unfavorable impression is scrupulously put under 
lock and key. So there is harmony of no ordinary 
sweetness made by the two young lives, unvexed by 
one discordant note. 

Marriage is a great mystery. " They twain shall 
be one flesh " is no mere figure of speech. Years 
of closest, most familiar, most unrestrained inti- 
macy bring lives very close together, but there is 
still a separating wall which marriage breaks down. 
The two lives become one. Each opens every 
nook, every chamber, every cranny, to the other. 
There is a mutual interflow, life pouring into life. 



THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 69 

There may have been no intention on the part of 
either to deceive the other in the smallest matter or 
to cloak the smallest infirmity. But the disclosure 
could not, in the very nature of things, have been 
any more perfect. Each stood in the vestibule of 
a house, or at the most sat in its parlor, never en- 
tering any other apartment. Now the whole house 
is thrown open, and many hitherto unsuspected 
things are seen. 

Too often the restraint seems to fall off when 
the matrimonial chain is riveted. No effort is 
longer made to curb the bad tempers and evil 
propensities. The delicate robe of politeness is 
torn away, and many a rudeness appears. It seems 
to be considered no longer necessary to continue 
the old thoughtfulness. Selfishness begins to assert 
itself. The sweet amenities of the wooing-days 
are laid aside, and the result is unhappiness. Many 
a young bride cries herself sick half a score of 
times before she has been a month a bride, and 
wishes she were back in the bright, happy home 
of her youth. Oftentimes both the newly-wedded 
pair become discouraged and think in their hearts 
that they have made a mistake. 

And yet there is really no reason for discourage- 
ment. The marriage may yet be made happy. 



70 week-day religion. 

There is need only for large and wise patience. 
The two lives require only to be brought into 
harmony, and love's sweetest music will flow from 
two hearts in tender unison. But there are several 
rules which must always be remembered and ob- 
served. 

Why, for instance, should either party, after the 
wedding-day, cease to observe all the sweet courte- 
sies, little refinements and charming amenities of 
the courtship-days? Why should a man be polite 
all day to every one he meets — even to the porter 
in his store, and the bootblack or newsboy on the 
street — and then less polite to her who meets him 
at his door with yearning heart hungry for ex- 
pressions of love? If things have gone wrong 
with him all day, why should he carry his gloom 
to his home to darken the joy of his wife's tender 
heart? Or why should the woman who used to 
be all smiles and beauty and adornment and per- 
fume when her lover came, meet her husband now 
with disheveled hair, soiled dress, slatternly man- 
ner and face all frowns? Why should there not 
be a resolute continuance of the old politeness and 
mutual desire to please which made the wooing- 
days so sunny? 

Then love must be lifted up out of the realm 



THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 71 

of the passions and senses and spiritualized. There 
should be converse on the higher themes of life. 
Many persons are married only at one or two 
points. Their natures know but the lower forms 
of pleasure and fellowship. They never commune 
on any topic but the most earthy. Their intel- 
lectual parts have no fellowship. They never read 
nor converse together on elevated themes. There 
is no commingling of mind with mind : they are 
dead to each other in that higher region. Then 
still fewer are wedded in their highest, their spirit- 
ual natures. The number is small of those who 
commune together concerning the things of God, 
the souPs holiest interests and the realities of eter- 
nity. No marriage is complete which does not 
unite and blend the wedded lives at every point. 
Husband and wife should be such along their 
whole nature. 

This implies that they should read and study 
together, having the same line of thought, help- 
ing each other toward higher mental culture. It 
implies also that they should worship together, 
communing with one another upon the holiest 
themes of life and hope. Together they should 
bow in prayer, and together work in antici- 
pation of the same blessed home beyond this life 



72 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of toil and care. I can conceive of no true and 
perfect marriage whose deepest joy does not lie 
forward in the life to come. 

Perfect mutual confidence is an element of every 
complete marriage. Husband and wife should live 
but one life, sharing all of each other's cares, joys, 
sorrows and hopes. There should not be a corner 
in the nature and occupation of either which is 
not open to the other. The moment a man has 
to begin to shut his wife out from any chapters 
of his daily life he is in peril, and in like man- 
ner her whole life should be open to him. There 
should be a flowing together of heart and soul in 
close communion and perfect confidence. No dis- 
cord can end in harm while there is such mutual 
intersphering of lives and such interflowing of souls. 

Once more, no third party should ever be taken 
into this holy of holies. No matter who it is — 
the sweetest, gentlest, dearest, wisest mother, the 
purest, truest, tenderest sister, the best, the loyal- 
est friend — no one but God should ever be per- 
mitted to know aught of the secret, sacred mar- 
ried life that they twain are living. This is one 
of those relations with which no stranger, though 
he be the closest bosom friend, should intermed- 
dle. Any alien touch is sure to leave a blight. 



THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 73 

There are certain influences that bring out all 
the warmth and tenderness needed to make any 
marriage very happy. When one is sick, how gen- 
tle and thoughtful it makes the other ! Not a want 
or wish is left unsupplied. All the heart's affec- 
tions — long slumbering, perhaps — >are awakened 
and become intent on most kindly ministry. Nc 
service is thought a hardship now or done with 
any show of reluctance. There is not a breath 
or look of impatience. Love flows out in tone 
and look and word and act. There is an inex- 
pressible tenderness in all the bearing. Even the 
coldest natures become gentle in the sick-room, 
and the rudest, harshest manners become soft and 
warm at the touch of suffering in the beloved one. 
Or let death come to either, and what an awaken- 
ing there is of all that is holiest and tenderest and 
sweetest in the heart of the other ! If the dead 
could be recalled and the wedded life resumed, 
would it not be a thousand times more loving than 
ever it was before ? Would there be any more the 
old impatience, the old selfishness? Would there 
not be the fullest sympathy, the largest forbear- 
ance, the warmest outflow of the heart's most 
kindly feelings? 

And why may not married life be lived day by 



74 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

day under the power of this wondrous influence? 
Why wait for suffering in the one we love to thaw 
out the heart's tenderness, to melt the icy chill 
of neglect and indifference, and to produce in us 
the summer fruits of affection ? Why wait for 
death to come to reveal the beauty of the plain 
and homely life that moves by our side and dis- 
close the value of the blessings it enfolds for us ? 
Why should we only learn to appreciate and prize 
love's splendors and its sweetness as it vanishes 
out of our sight? Very sadly — and yet how truth- 
fully! — has one sung: 

"And she is gone, sweet human love is gone! 
'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day 
Beside you and lie down at night by you, 
Who care not for their presence — muse or sleep ; 
And all at once they leave you. Then you know them ! 
We are so fooled, so cheated I" 

But why should the empty chair be the first re- 
vealer of the real worth of those who have walked 
so close to us ? Why should sorrow over our loss 
be the first influence to draw from our hearts the 
tenderness and the wealth of kindly ministries that 
lie pent up in them all the while ? Surely, wedded 
life should call out all that is richest, truest, ten- 
derest, most inspiring and most helpful in the life 



THE MARRIAGE ALTAR, AND AFTER. 75 

of each. This is the true ideal of Christian mar- 
riage. Its love is to be like that of Christ and his 
Church. It should not wait for the agony of suf- 
fering or the pang of separation to draw out its 
tenderness, but should fill all its days and nights 
with unvexed sweetness. 

There are many such marriages. Few more 
beautiful pictures of wedded love were ever un- 
veiled than that which was lived out in the home 
of Charles Kingsley. His wife closes her loving 
memoir with these words: "The outside world 
must judge him as an author, a preacher, a mem- 
ber of society, but those only who lived with him 
in the intimacy of every-day life at home can tell 
what he was as a man. Over the real romance 
of his life and over the tenderest, loveliest passages 
in his private letters a veil must be thrown, but it 
will not be lifting it too far to say that if in the 
highest, closest of earthly relationships a love that 
never failed — pure, patient, passionate — for six-and- 
thirty years, a love which never stooped from its 
own lofty level to a hasty word, an impatient ges- 
ture or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, in 
sunshine or in storm, by day or by night, could 
prove that the age of chivalry has not passed away 
for ever, then Charles Kingsley fulfilled the ideal 



76 WEEK-BAY RELIGION. 

of a 'most true and perfect knight ' to the one 
woman blest with that love in time and to eter- 
nity. To eternity, for such love is eternal, and 
he is not dead. He himself, the man, the lover, 
husband, father, friend — he still lives in God, who 
is not the God of the dead, but of the living." 
And why should not every marriage in Christ 
realize all that lies in this picture ? It is possible, 
and yet only noble manhood and womanhood, with 
truest views of marriage and inspired by the holi- 
est love, can realize it. 



VIII. 

RELIGION IN THE HOME. 

" Sweet are the joys of home, 
And pure as sweet; for they, 
Like dews of morn and evening, come 

To make and close the day." 

■ 

1% /TUCH is said and written of religion in the 
"^ " J - home, and yet it may be that there is not 
always a clear conception of the meaning of the 
term. It is sometimes supposed that the re- 
quirement is fully met when family devotions are 
regularly maintained. This is of vital importance. 
Household religion certainly implies the daily 
family worship. I cannot think that any home 
realizes the true ideal or can have Heaven's richest 
benedictions upon it in which this is omitted or 
neglected. God blesses and shelters the household 
in which he is honored. Prayer weaves a roof of 
love over the home and builds walls of protection 
about it. 

Surely the goodness of a thoughtful Providence, 

77 



78 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

received day after day in unbroken continuity, 
requires some grateful recognition of praise. Then 
is it not a perilous thing for the members of the 
household to disperse in the morning to their 
duties and responsibilities, into dangers and temp- 
tations, to meet possible trials, without the invoking 
of Heaven's guidance, protection and help ? There 
is reason to fear that in many homes family wor- 
ship is neglected, and that in the intense whirl and 
excitement of these busy times the neglect is be- 
coming more and more common. How can we 
expect God's blessing upon our homes if we do 
not call upon his name? Is it any wonder that 
there is sorrow over children's wanderings in the 
households in which there is no family altar? 

There is a wondrous educating influence in the 
daily assemblage of the family for prayer. Where 
through childhood and youth the custom has been 
regularly maintained, its influence over the life is 
such as can never be wholly obliterated. And it 
may be seriously questioned whether in any other 
way, by any other means, children can be so firmly 

" Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

The memories of the old family altar, waked 
years and years after the home walls had crumbled 



RELIGION IN THE HOME. 79 

and the home voices had become silent, have led 
many a wanderer back to God's feet. 

Then there is nothing else that so sweetens the 
home-life. True family w r orship is a fountain that 
brings streams of holy influences into every part of 
the household. It is a vase of perfume that sheds 
fragrance over all. It softens asperities. It quells 
anger. It quiets impatience. It settles differences. 
It subdues evil passions. Hearts that are drawn 
together at God's feet every day cannot get very 
far apart. The frictions of the day are forgotten 
when all voices mingle in the same heavenly song. 
As the tender words of inspiration fall with their 
benign counsels all feeling of unkindness melts 
away. The altar in the midst wondrously hallows 
and sweetens the home fellowship. Besides, it 
puts new strength into every heart. It comforts 
sorrow. It is a shield against temptation. It 
smoothes out the wrinkles of care. It inspires 
strength for burden-bearing. It quickens every 
religious sentiment and keeps the fires burning on 
every heart's altar. 

The manner in which the family worship is con- 
ducted is very important. It should be made so 
pleasant as to be looked forward to with gladness 
even by the youngest children. Too often it is 



80 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

made tedious, monotonous or burdensome. Men fall 
into a stereotyped order which they never vary. 
Long passages are read, and the prayers offered 
are not only long, but are the same every day from 
year to year, with no adaptation to the home-life, 
or to the capacities of children. There is no reason 
why the family worship should not be the most de- 
lightful exercise in the home-life. It should be the 
continual study of heads of households to make it 
bright, interesting and profitable. To make it dull 
and irksome is treason to true religion. It is im- 
possible to give more than the merest suggestions 
and hints as to methods. A part in the service 
should be given to each child. Questions may be 
asked each day on the passage read the day before. 
Incidents may be introduced to illustrate the lesson. 
Hard words may be explained. One practical 
thought at least may be selected from the Scrip- 
ture read which will bear upon the day's life. 
Cheerful songs may be sung. Then in the prayer 
some part should be given to the little ones. 
Sometimes it is good to have all follow in the 
prayer, repeating it phrase after phrase. And all 
may unite in the Lord's Prayer at the close. 
When there are quite young children in the family, 
it may not be best to read the Bible in course, but 



RELIGION IN THE HOME. 81 

to select portions in which they will be easily in- 
terested. For an exercise so sacred and fraught 
with such influences it is not too much to say that 
the most careful preparation should be made. It 
is probable that there are few duties for which so 
little preparation is actually made. If thought 
were given to this matter beforehand, the exercise 
need never be dull or wearisome. The passage 
may not only be selected, but studied and some 
point fixed upon for practical enforcement. A 
bright incident or little story may be ready to help 
to fix the lesson. The prayer may be thought over 
or even written out. A few minutes given every 
day to preparation for family worship will serve 
to make it, as it should be, the most pleasant and 
attractive incident of the day. 

But while family religion implies regular devo- 
tions, there is something else required. There are 
homes in which family worship is never neglected 
in which there is yet a painful absence of home 
religion. Religion is love, and a religious home is 
one in which love reigns. There must be love in 
action, love that flows out in all the home inter- 
course, showing itself in a thousand little expres- 
sions of thoughtfulness, kindness, unselfishness and 
gentle courtesy. There are homes in which there 



82 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

is truest love. The members of the household 
would give their lives for each other. When 
grief or pain comes to any one of them, the hearts 
of all the others are touched and at once go out in 
deepest sympathy, in warmest expressions of affec- 
tion and in self-forgetful ministries. There is no 
question as to the reality and the strength of the 
attachment that mutually exists between the hearts 
of the household. And yet in their ordinary as- 
sociations there is a great lack of those exhibitions 
of kindly feeling which are the sweetest charm of 
love. There is a lack of tender words. Husband 
and wife pass week after week without one harsh 
word, it may be, but also without one of those en- 
dearing expressions such as made their early love- 
days so sunny and radiant. And the intercourse of 
the whole household is characterized by the same lack 
of warmth and tenderness. The conversation is 
about the most commonplace matters, is often con- 
strained, and in many cases consists only of occa- 
sional monosyllables. Many a meal is eaten almost 
in silence. The tone of the home-life is cold. 
All sentiment is avoided, no compliments are 
uttered. Even the simplest courtesies of manner 
are often neglected. Favors are asked, given and 
accepted without one of those sweetening graces of 



RELIGION IN THE HOME. 83 

politeness which we are all so careful to observe in 
our intercourse with strangers, and which add so 
much to the pleasure of such intercourse. 

Sorrow falls upon one of the family, and imme- 
diately all is changed. The coldness of manner 
passes into tenderness. This proves the reality 
and power of the family bond. But ought the 
love to be so locked up and hidden away in the 
crannies of the heart and in the inner recesses 
of the nature as to require affliction or sorrow to 
call it out? Should not love celebrate its sweetest 
summer all the while in the home? Should it 
require calamity or pain to woo out its fragrance 
and its beauty? 

What a wondrous charm it gives to family-life 
when all the members let their hearts' love flow 
out in all those tender graces of expression which 
have so much power to give joy! There are such 
homes. The very atmosphere, as you enter the 
door, seems laden with fragrance. The rarest 
courtesy marks all the intercourse of the family. 
Each one is thoughtful of the other's comfort and 
pleasure. No harsh word is spoken. The con- 
versation at table flows on in musical sweetness, 
bright, sparkling and cheerful, without one jar. 
There is no sullen look on any face. There is no 



84 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

disregard of politeness. There is no laying aside 
of good manners. 

But there are many who are amiable and polite 
away from home who are not so in the sacredness 
of their own household. There are men who in 
society are courteous, thoughtful and gracious who 
when they enter their own doors become gruff, 
moody, and even rude. There are ladies who are 
the brightest charm of the social circle, sunny, 
sparkling, thoughtful, who as they cross their own 
thresholds are suddenly transformed, becoming 
disagreeable, petulant, impatient, irritable and un- 
lovely. Some of the most brilliant lights of soci- 
ety are the most unendurable at home. They keep 
their courtly manners for company, and relapse 
into barbarism when in the shelter of their own 
roof-tree. They have "careful thought for the 
stranger," but for their "own the bitter tone/' 

Now, it need not be said that the most unbroken 
continuity in family devotions will not make such 
home-life religious. A true Christian home is one 
in whose holy circle all live the religion of Christ. 
We should be just as sunny inside our own doors 
as on the street. Courtesy that changes to rude- 
ness when we cross our own threshold is no cour- 
tesy at all. Love that beareth all things, endureth 



RELIGION IN THE HOME. 85 

all things and seeketh not its own must not turn 
to petulance and selfishness at home. We should 
appear always at our best among those we love the 
best. We ought to bring the sweetest things of 
our hearts into our homes. 

Yet there are tendencies to careless living at 
home against which we need to guard ourselves 
very carefully. Sacred as are the home relation- 
ships, our very familiarity with them is apt to 
render us forgetful. Incessant repetitions of im- 
pressions of any kind are in danger of producing 
callousness of sensibility. In the constant con- 
tact of the home-loves lies the danger that we 
become heedless of them. It takes special care 
and watchfulness and continual quickening of the 
affections to keep our hearts' sensibilities always 
alive to the unbroken touch of the tender relation- 
ships of home. Then outside we have to be ever 
on our guard. The world has no patience with 
our ill-temper and bad manners. A moment's 
petulance, a single gruff reply or uncivil word, 
or the want of courtesy in the smallest thing, 
may cost us a friend or lose us a customer or 
mar our reputation. Hence we have the constant 
pressure of these selfish motives to compel us to 
appear always at our best in society. 



86 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

But at home this pressure is removed. We are 
sure of the hearts there. They have patience with 
us. Their love is not of the fickle and uncertain 
kind that requires continuous propitiation. We 
have no fear of losing their esteem or regard. In 
our heedless selfishness we are in constant danger, 
when we enter the home-shelter after the stress 
of the day, of removing the restraint and permit- 
ting our least amiable self to come to the outside. 

There is still another reason why peculiar watch- 
fulness over the home-behavior is necessary. In 
the outside world the contact of life with life is 
usually at a reasonable distance. We do not get 
very close to men. We see only their best points. 
We meet them only in favorable circumstances, 
and are not compelled to endure the friction of 
actual contact with their meaner qualities. But 
that which makes home-intercourse the sorest test 
of piety and of character is its closeness. Lives 
touch there at every point. The very unrestraint, 
laying all lives bare to each other, adds immeas- 
urably to the danger of friction. Nothing but 
the religion of Christ, the love that endureth all 
things, is equal to the strain of such experiences. 



IX. 

THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 

"'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up 
Whose golden rounds are our calamities, 
Whereon, our firm feet planting, nearer God 
The spirit climbs and hath its eyes unsealed." 

A BOOK that treats even fragmentarily of 
-*-^- Christian culture would be incomplete with- 
out a chapter on the ministry of sorrow, for this 
is an experience through which sooner or later 
every life must pass. It is part of the earthly 
education for the heavenly glory. Our Lord him- 
self passed this way before us and was made per- 
fect through suffering, and it is also ordained for 
us, his followers, that through much tribulation 
we must enter the kingdom of heaven. 

They are only the very young who know noth- 
ing as yet of the liturgy of grief. To them the 
language of sorrow is an unknown tongue, and the 
consolations of the Scriptures seem written in pale 
or invisible ink. But it will not long be so. The 

87 



88 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

years will bring griefs to them, and under their 
hot flames the comforts of religion will glow upon 
the inspired page as no other words do. The rail- 
way-officials passed through our train at midday 
and lighted the lamps. The passengers could not 
understand why it was done. How pale the lights 
seemed in the blaze of noon ! But soon we plunged 
into a long tunnel, into pitchy darkness. How 
brightly then the beams shone down upon us ! 
and how grateful we all were for the lamps ! So 
the lamps of comfort which God hangs about our 
hearts in our sunny youth, and which seem to us 
so dim and so without a purpose while there is no 
break in our joy, will burst into heavenly bright- 
ness when the darkness thickens about us. What 
shall we then do if none of these lamps of conso- 
lation are ready lighted in our hearts? 

The ministries of sorrow for the Christian are 
manifold. Blighting the joys of earth on which 
he had set his heart, it turns his eye toward the 
things that are unseen and eternal. There are 
many who never saw Christ until the light of 
some tender beauty faded before them, and, looking 
up in the darkness, they beheld that blessed face 
beaming down upon them in divine gentleness 
and love. 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 89 

Through the clouded glass 

Of our own bitter tears we learn to look 

Undazzled on the kindness of God's face : 

Earth is too dark, and heaven alone shines through." 



Many of the sweetest joys of Christian hearts 
are songs which have been learned in the bitterness 
of trial. A story is told of "a little bird that will 
never learn to sing the song his master will have 
him sing while his cage is full of light. He 
listens and learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, 
a polyglot of all the songs in the grove, but never 
a separate and entire melody of his own. But the 
master covers his cage and makes it dark all about 
him, and then he listens and listens to the one song 
he is to sing, and tries and tries, and tries again, 
until at last his heart is full of it. And then, when 
he has caught the melody, the cage is uncovered, and 
he sings it sweetly ever after in the light." 

It is often with our hearts as with the bird. 
The Master has a song to teach us, but we learn 
only a strain of it, a note here and there, while we 
catch up snatches of earth's music, the world's songs, 
and sing them with it. Then he comes and makes 
it dark about us till we learn the sweet song he 
would teach us. And, having once learned it in 
the deep shadows, we continue to sing it afterward, 



90 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

even in the brightest day of earthly joy. Many 
of the loveliest songs of peace and trust and hope 
which God's children sing in this world they have 
been taught in the hushed and darkened chambers 
of sorrow. 

In like manner, many of the rarest beauties of 
character are touches given by the divine Spirit in 
the hours of affliction. Many a Christian enters a 
sore trial, cold, worldly, unspiritual, with all the 
better and more tender qualities of his nature 
locked up in his heart like the beauty and fra- 
grance in the bare and jagged tree in January ; but 
he comes out of it with gentle spirit, mellowed, 
richened and sweetened, and with all the fragrant 
graces pouring their perfume about him. The 
photographer carries his picture back into a dark- 
ened room that he may bring out its features. 
The light would mar his delicate work. God 
brings out in many a soul its loveliest beauties 
while the curtain is drawn and the light of day 
shut out. The darkness does not tell of anger : 
it is only the shadow of the wing of divine love 
folded close over us for a little, while the Master 
adds some new touch of loveliness to the picture 
he is bringing out in our souls. 

Afflictions, sanctified, soften the asperities of 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 91 

life. They tame the wildness of nature. They 
temper human ambitions. They burn out the 
dross of selfishness and worldliness. They hum- 
ble pride. They quell fierce passions. They re- 
veal to men their own hearts, their own weaknesses, 
faults, blemishes and perils. They teach patience 
and submission. They disciple unruly spirits. 
They deepen and enrich our experiences. Plough- 
ing the hard soil and cutting long and deep furrows 
in the heart, the heavenly Sower follows, and fruits 
of righteousness spring up. It has been said that 
" the last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, 
even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the 
hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth 
of heart toward the cold, and philanthropy toward 
the misanthropic." But there is no influence under 
which these late fruits ripen so quickly as under 
the power of sorrow. It makes us gentle toward 
all. It softens every harsh feeling and fills the 
heart with tender sympathy, kindly charity and 
benevolent dispositions. Many a home is saved 
from wreck by a sorrow that comes and draws 
estranged hearts close together again. Many a 
cold, icy nature is made warm and tender by the 
grief that crushes it. 

Then sorrow cuts the chains that bind us to this 



92 



WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 



earthly life and sends us out to sea on voyages of 
new discovery. It opens windows in our poor 
prison-life here through which we get glimpses of 
the better things of immortality and glory. 

Especially is this true of the loss of friends by 
death. We live absorbed in the earthly life about 
us, thinking of no other, our eyes fixed on the 
dusty soil at our feet and not seeing the radiant 
heavens that glow and shine above our heads. 
Then suddenly one whom we love is plucked away 
from our side, and for the first time w r e begin to 
look up and to obtain glimpses of the invisible and 
eternal things of the life above and beyond us. 
Thus viewed from any side, affliction appears as a 
messenger of God sent to minister to us in the 
truest way. As one has beautifully written of 
sorrow, 

" I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength, 
And slowly, sweetly, I became aware 
Within my arms God's angel stood at length, 

White-robed and calm and fair. 
'Look thou beyond the evening sky,' she said, 
' Beyond the changing splendors of the day, 
Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread — 
Accept, and bid me stay.' " 



God is the Comforter. He has put up the 
bowers and opened the springs of comfort in al- 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 93 

most every page of his word. At the head of 
almost every chapter an angel seems to stand cry- 
ing, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your 
God." There is no darkness that gathers about 
any of God's children into which he does not send 
some beams of brightness. 

One dark and dreary winter day I sat in my 
study thinking what I should say to my people on 
the Sabbath. The sky had been heavily overcast 
all the morning. But suddenly there was a little 
rift in the clouds, and a few sunbeams fell on my 
window. As the brightness flowed in I raised my 
eyes, and there, on the wall, was a little bit of as 
glorious rainbow as ever I saw. There was some 
peculiar formation in the glass of the window-pane 
w T hich acted as a perfect prism, disentangling and 
unsnarling the white beam and spreading its bril- 
liant threads in rich display upon the plastered 
wall of the room. So there is no life of Christian 
disciple, however dark and full of cares and grief, 
into which God does not at some hour of each day 
pour a little at least of the splendor of heaven. 
The trouble is that we shut our eyes to the com- 
fort and will not look upon it. We see all the 
clouds and sit in the darkness, beholding not the 
sunbeams and the bits of rainbow that our Fa- 



94 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

ther sends into our lives to brighten and illumine 
them. 

There is a picture of a woman seated on the low 
rocks, looking out upon a wild sea down into which 
the treasures of her heart have gone. Her face is 
stony with hopeless, despairing grief. Almost 
touching the black robe of the mourner, hovering 
over her shoulder, is the shadowy form of an angel 
softly touching the strings of a harp. But she is 
unaware of the angel's nearness, nor does she hear 
a note of the celestial music. She bows in dumb 
unconsciousness, with breaking heart and unsoothed 
sorrow, while the heavenly consolation is so close. 
Thus many of God's children sit in darkness, 
crushed by their sorrows, yearning for comfort and 
for an assurance of the divine love and sympathy, 
hearing no soft music, no whisper of consolation, 
while close beside them the Master himself stands 
unperceived, and heaven's sweetest songs float un- 
heard in the very air they breathe. It is a simpler 
faith we need to take the consolation our Father 
sends when our hearts are breaking. 

There is no comfort like the fact of God's infi- 
nite, unchanging and eternal love for us. If we 
can but get this truth into our individual conscious- 
ness, it will sustain us in every trial. All the uni- 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW, 95 

verse is under his personal sway, and he is our 
tenderest and dearest Friend, carrying each one 
of us close in his heart. Providence is not merely 
the outworking of a mechanical system or the 
beneficent operation of wise and good laws. It is 
rather the thoughtful, sleepless, loving care of our 
Father. We put God too far off. There are laws 
of Nature, but he is the Lawmaker, and these laws 
are but the methods of his kindness. They do 
not make any gulf between him and his children. 
In every well-ordered household there are regula- 
tions, rules, habits, laws, but these do not make 
the home-providence any less due to the love and 
kindness of the parents. No more do Nature's 
established and uniform laws cut us off from the 
personal care of God. He comes near to us per- 
petually in these methods of his providence. His 
own fingers touch the tints in the flower. With his 
own hand he feeds the birds, and in all second 
causes it is still his hand that works. The beauti- 
ful things we see are the pictures our Father has 
hung up in our chamber to give us pleasure. The 
good things we receive are the ever-fresh tokens 
of his thoughtful love for us. 

And the same is true of the evil and painful 
things. Our Father sent them. They seem to 



96 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

mean harm. But he loves us with a love deep, 
tender and eternal. We cannot see how these 
things consist with love's plan, but we know that 
tbey must; and in this faith we may rest, not 
understanding, but yet undoubting, unquestioning 
and unfearing. 

"If we could push ajar the gates of life, 

And stand within and all God's workings see, 
We could interpret all this doubt and strife, 
And for each mystery could find a key." 

But this we cannot do. Hereafter we shall 
know. Yet even now, knowing what we do of 
God's wise and eternal love for us, we can believe 
and trust and be at peace. This is the truest com- 
fort. It is the clasp of the tree's roots upon the 
immutable rock. It is the soul's clinging to God 
in the storm. 

A tourist writes of stopping at Giesbach to look 
at the winders of its waterfalls. The party had 
to pass over one of the falls on a slender bridge 
through the drenching water, with the wild tor- 
rents dashing beneath. It was a trying experience. 
But once through a glorious picture burst upon 
them. There were rainbows above, beneath and 
circling on all sides. So the spray of sorrow falls 
now, and we may have to walk through floods and 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 97 

pitiless torrents, and all may seem a strange, in- 
explicable mystery. But there will come a time 
when we shall have passed through these showers 
of grief, and when we shall stand amid the splen- 
dor of rainbows on the shores of glory. Then we 
will understand, and see love in every pang and 

tear. 

7 



X. 

AS UNTO THE LORD. 

" I must pray to God that somebody else may do whatever 
I leave undone. But I shall not have any right to that prayer 
unless I do my duty wherever I see it." — Edward Garrett. 

A GREAT deal is said in the Scriptures about 
-^-*~ serving the Lord. But how are we to serve 
him? What kind of work comes under the head 
of service? There are wrong impressions regard- 
ing this. All suppose that they are serving the 
Lord when they engage in specifically religious 
exercises. After his day's work a man goes to a 
prayer-meeting. He regards that as serving, but 
does not think of calling his long day's secular 
work by the same sweet designation. A woman 
visits a sick neighbor in the afternoon, reads a few 
passages and bows in prayer at her bedside. She 
feels as she turns away that the Lord accepts that 
as service, but she does not dare to think of her 
long morning's work at home in burdensome 
household duties or among her children, mending, 

98 



AS UNTO THE LORD. 99 

patching, teaching, comforting, as of the same 
sacred character. 

And yet it is possible for us to do the simplest, 
most prosaic of these things in such a way as to 
render acceptable service to the Lord. The ques- 
tion, then, arises, How are we to perform these 
common secular duties so as to make them pleas- 
ing to Christ as ministries to him? 

First of all, our lives must be truly consecrated 
to Christ. If they are not, the most magnificent 
services will not be accepted. Then the work we 
do must be the work to which he calls us at the 
time. Something else than our present duty, 
though requiring more toil and appearing more 
splendid, will not be pleasing while present duty 
is left unperformed. A missionary journey to 
Joppa will not be accepted as a substitute for a 
similar visit to Nineveh. Prayer will not be a 
sweet savor if at the moment there is a human 
need crying for help unheeded. Running to Dor- 
cas-meetings and temperance societies or attend- 
ing noonday prayer-meetings will not win the 
smile of approval while home-duties are neg- 
lected. 

Then the work we do must itself be pure and 
good work in a lawful and proper calling. No 



100 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

formal consecration can make any wrong-doing 
pleasing to the Master. 

Then, again, we must do our work well. Work 
that we slight or do dishonestly is not acceptable 
service. This phase of Christian duty is some- 
times overlooked. Those who would not utter a 
false word or commit a dishonest act will yet per- 
form their work carelessly or imperfectly. The 
principles of religion apply just as well to the car- 
penter's trade or to the tailor's or to the house- 
keeper's work as to the business of the banker or 
the merchant. It is just as really dishonest to sew 
up a seam that will rip or to put inferior material 
or bad workmanship into a building as it is to use 
a short yardstick or light weights or to adulterate 
coffee or sugar. God is not pleased with any work 
unless it is the very best that we can render. 

The old cathedral- builders understood this when 
they finished every smallest detail of their stupen- 
dous fabrics as conscientiously as the most massive 
parts. The gilded spires, far away in the clouds, 
which no human eye could ever inspect, were made 
with as much care as the altar-mouldings or the 
carvings on the great doors, which all should see. 
They slighted nothing because it was not to be ex- 
posed to human gaze. They wrought for the great 



AS UNTO THE LORD. 101 

Taskmaster's eye. " Why carve you so carefully the 
tresses of that statue's head?" asked one of an 
ancient sculptor as he wrought with marvelous 
pains on the back part of the figure. " The statue 
will stand high up in its niche, with its back to the 
wall, and no one will see it." — " Ah ! the gods will 
see it," was the sublime answer. So must we 
work if we would render pleasing service to the 
Lord. The builder must build as conscientiously 
in the parts that are to be covered from sight as in 
those that will be most conspicuous. The dress- 
maker must sew as faithfully the hidden seams as 
the most showy. I do not believe that we can 
ever serve Christ acceptably by any kind of 
shams or deceits. 

If we do our secular work thus, it will be accept- 
able to the Lord as service rendered to him. It 
may be impossible with each separate act to have 
the conscious feeling, " I do this for Christ." As 
far as possible, we should cultivate the habit of this 
minute serving. It will give a wondrous inspira- 
tion to our lives, and will change even drudgery 
into service as holy as angels' ministries. It is not 
impossible to learn to do even this. But if the 
great underlying motive of all our life be to serve 
and honor Christ and bless the world, the whole in- 



102 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

eludes all its parts. And thus the dreariest paths 
of duty will become bright ways of joy, the com- 
monest drudgeries of life will become clothed in 
garments of beauty, and all routine-work, in home 
and field, in shop and office, in school and study, 
will appear sacred and holy because done for the 
Master. 

But amid these common secular duties come 
countless opportunities of serving in another sense 
by active ministries to others. This is always 
pleasing to Christ ; indeed, he puts himself behind 
every one who needs help or comfort, and accepts 
all deeds of benevolence and true charity as done to 
himself. And there is not an hour of our waking 
existence that does not bring us in contact with 
other lives that need something we have to give. 
We are not to wait for opportunities to do great 
things — not to keep watching for some splendid 
thing which by its conspicuous importance may 
win for us the applause of men — but are to do al- 
ways, moment by moment, the thing that comes to 
our hand. It may be to speak a cheering word to 
one who is disheartened, to join in a child's play, 
to mend a broken toy, to send a few flowers made 
more fragrant by your love into a sick-room, or to 
write a letter of condolence or sympathy. It is the 



AS UNTO THE LORD. 103 

thing, small or great, which our hand finds at the 
moment to do. 

Or our part in serving may often be to wait. 
There are times when we can do nothing more. 
The voice which has been wont to say, " Go and 
labor," is heard saying, "Lie still and wait." 
Then quiet, submissive, unmurmuring patience 
pleases Christ just as well as ever did the most 
intense activities in other days. 

Or it may be in suffering that we are called to 
serve. There come occasions in the life of each 
one of us when the best thing for us is darkness and 
pain, when we can do most for the cause of Christ 
by suffering for his sake. In such cases the secret 
of service lies in joyful resignation, asking 

" What would God have this sorrow do for me ? 
What is its mission ? What its great design ? 
What golden fruit lies hidden in its husk ? 
How shall it nurse my virtue, nerve my will, 
Chasten my passions, purify my love, 
And make me in some goodly sense like him 
Who bore the cross of sorrow while he lived 
And hung and bled upon it when he died, 
And now in glory wears the victor's crown?" 

Into a prisoner's cell came each day for half an 
hour a few rays of sunlight. He found a nail and 
a stone on his floor, and with these rude imple- 



104 WEEK-DAY BELIGION. 

ments cut and chiseled day after day during the 
few moments when the light lay upon the wall, 
until in the stone he had cut the image of the 
Christ upon his cross. In the dark days of sorrow 
that come to us we may serve Christ by seeking 
to sculpture his sweet beauty, not in cold stone, but 
on the warm, living walls of our own hearts. 

Thus we see that serving the Lord is not the 
privilege and pleasure of a few rare hours alone, 
but embraces the whole wide range of life and 
work and takes in all our relationships to home, to 
friends, to humanity, to business, to pleasure. If 
the heart be right, our whole life becomes one un- 
broken series of services rendered to the Lord. 

The vital point in this whole matter is the mo- 
tive that underlies it all. It is possible to live a 
very laborious life filled with intense activities, and 
yet never, from youth to old age, do one deed that 
Christ accepts as service. It is possible even to 
live a life of what is called religious service, full 
of what are regarded as sacred duties, and yet 
never in one thing truly serve Christ. The heart 
may never have been given to him at all. Or the 
motives may have been wrong. That which makes 
any act distinctively a Christian act is that it is 
done in the name of Christ and to please him. 



AS UNTO THE LORD. 105 

The moralist does right things, but without any 
reference to Christ, not confessing him or loving 
him ; the Christian does the same things, but does 
them because the Master wants him to do them. 
As one has beautifully said, " What we can do for 
God is little or nothing, but we must do our little 
nothings for his glory." This is the motive that, 
filling our hearts, makes even drudgery divine be- 
cause it is done for Christ. It may be but to 
sweep a room or rock an infant to sleep or teach 
a ragged child or mend a rent or plane a board ; 
but if it is done as unto the Lord, it will be owned 
and accepted. But it may be the grandest of works 
— the founding of an asylum, the building of a 
cathedral or a whole life of eloquence or display ; 
but if it is not done for Christ, it all counts for 
nothing. 

There is no life in the world so sweet as that of 
one who truly serves Christ. It is always easy to 
toil for one we love. And when the heart is full 
of love for the Master, it throws a wondrous 
warmth and tenderness about all duty. Things 
that would be very austere or repulsive merely as 
duties become very easy when done for him. 

It was the strange fancy of a little child, writes 
George Macdonald, as he stood on a summer's 



106 



WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 



evening looking intently and thoughtfully at the 
great banks of clouds piled like mountains of 
glory about the setting sun : " Mother, I wish I 
could be a painter." — " Why, my child ?" — " For 
then I would help God paint the clouds and the 
sunsets." It was a strange and beautiful aspira- 
tion. But our commonest work in this world may 
be made far nobler than that. We may live to 
touch hues of loveliness in immortal spirits which 
shall endure for ever. 

Clouds dissolve and float away. The most gor- 
geous sunset splendors vanish in a few moments. 
The artist's canvas crumbles and his wondrous 
creations fade. But work done for Christ endures 
for ever. A life of simple consecration leaves a 
trace of imperishable beauty on everything it 
touches. Not great deeds alone, but the smallest, 
the obscurest, the most prosaic, write their record 
in fadeless lines. 

We need to have but the one care — that we live 
our one little life truly unto the Lord. 



XL 

HUMILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 

T 1 1HEKE are some rare and beautiful virtues in 
-"- whose shadow evils lurk. Thus humility is 
one of the loveliest of the graces. It is an orna- 
ment which in the sight of God is of great price. 
It is an element of character which wins the ad- 
miration of all the world. It is the highest proof 
of inner beauty of soul. It is like the fragrance 
of the lovely violet hidden amid the more con- 
spicuous forms of life, unseen, but filling all the 
air with its sweet perfume. No grace is more 
highly commended in the Scriptures. 

And yet in its shade there hide very specious 
counterfeits of itself. Many a man, while seriously 
believing that he was exercising an acceptable hu- 
mility, has buried his talents in the earth, hidden 
his light under a bushel, lived a useless life w T hen 
he might have been a blessing to many, and passed 
in the end to a darkened and crownless future. 

107 



108 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

The virtue and the vice lie so close together and 
look so much alike that we are quite apt to be de- 
ceived. We all admire humility. We are pleased 
to find a man who does not place a high estimate 
on his own powers, and who modestly shrinks from 
great responsibilities even when they are pressed 
upon him. Amid the almost universal strife for 
the highest places, it is refreshing to find a man 
who is not scheming for preferment, and who even 
declines proffered trusts and honors. The exceed- 
ing rarity of modesty and humility in men's self- 
estimates makes these traits shine in very charming 
beauty when they do appear. We grow so sick of 
men's pretensions, their bold pressing of their own 
virtues and excellences upon our attention, and their 
eagerness to assume responsibilities for which they 
have no adequate fitness, that we very easily glide 
into the other extreme. 

It is especially in the sphere of moral and spirit- 
ual work that we are most apt to excuse ourselves 
from duty on the plea of humility. Even those 
who quite eagerly accept important positions in 
secular life, and perform their duties with confi- 
dence and effectiveness, shrink from the simplest 
exercise of their powers in Christian work. Men 
who at the bar or on the judge's bench can utter 



HUMILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 109 

most eloquent words in behalf of justice and right 
cannot be induced to open their lips in exhortation 
or prayer in a religious meeting. Ladies who in 
the parlor and social circle exercise their conversa- 
tional powers with wondrous grace and earnestness 
cannot sit down beside an anxious inquirer to try- 
to guide a soul to Christ, or read and pray in a 
sick-room, where their tender voice and gentle sym- 
pathy would impart such marvelous help. 

Over all the Church the prevalent tendency upon 
the part of lay-members is to shrink from the exer- 
cise of their gifts in the Master's work. And the 
plea is unfitness, want of ability. Classes go un- 
taught in many a Sabbath-school, and there are 
thousands of children that ought to be gathered in 
and trained. Meanwhile, there are large numbers 
of Christian men and women in the churches, with 
abundant ability for such service, but who shrink 
from it and try to satisfy their own uneasy con- 
sciences by humbly pleading unfitness for the del- 
icate duties. There are urgent necessities for work 
in every line of Christian enterprise. There are 
fields that need only reasonable culture to render 
them fruitful. There are voices calling to duty 
that break upon our ears every moment amid the 
noises of the street. There are cries of human 



110 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

distress and want that are for ever coming to our 
hearts with their urgent appeals. But amid all 
these opportunities for usefulness, these waiting, 
clamorous duties and these pathetic pleadings for 
help, gifted men and women sit with folded hands. 

It is not because thev have no interest in the 
Master's work or are insensible to the calls of 
duty and the cries of distress. It is because they 
are unconscious of their own power. They do not 
believe that they have ability to do the things that 
need to be done. They think it would be pre- 
sumption for them, with their weak and unskilled 
hands, to undertake the duties that solicit them. 
So they fold their talent away and bury it, and 
think that they have acted in the line of a beau- 
tiful and commendable humility, in modestly de- 
clining such important responsibilities. It does 
not occur to them that they have grievously 
sinned. 

Our humility serves us falsely when it leads us 
to shrink from any duty. The plea of unfitness 
or inability is utterly insufficient to excuse us. It 
is too startlingly like that offered by the one-tal- 
ented man in the parable, whose gift was so small 
that there seemed no use in trying to employ it. 
The lurid light that the sequel to his story flashes 



HUMILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. Ill 

upon us should arouse us to read the meaning of 
personal responsibility, and to hasten to employ 
every shred of a gift that God has bestowed 
upon us. 

The talent may be very small — so small that it 
scarcely seems to matter whether it is used or not 
so far as its impression on the world or on other 
lives is concerned ; and yet we can never know 
what is small or what is great in this life, in 
which every cause starts consequences that sweep 
into eternity. 

"ODly a thought; but the work it wrought 
Could never by tongue or pen be taught, 
For it ran through a life like a thread of gold, 
And the life bore fruit a hundred fold. 

"Only a word; but 'twas spoken in love, 
With a whispered prayer to the Lord above; 
And the angels in heaven rejoiced once more, 
For a new-born soul entered in by the door." 

It is the faithfulness of the one-talented million 
rather than of the richly-endowed one or two that 
is needed to-day to hasten the coming of Christ's 
kingdom. There is not a gift so small that it is 
not wanted to make the work of the church com- 
plete. There is not one so small but that its hid- 
ing away leaves some life unblest. There is not 
one so insignificant that it may not start a wave 



112 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of influence which shall roll on over the sea of 
human life until it breaks on the shores of eter- 
nity. 

But the most startling phase of this subject is 
that which concerns the person himself. Instead 
of being a merely negative act, or even a praise- 
worthy humility, to decline a responsibility, it is 
described in the Scriptures as a great dishonor to 
Christ, who has bestowed his gifts upon us, and as 
involving the most calamitous and farreaching 
personal consequences. All gifts are granted to 
be used, and used to the utmost. We are required 
to develop our abilities by exercise until they have 
attained the very highest possibility of power and 
usefulness, and to employ them in doing work 
which will honor God and bless the world. 

The perversion of our gifts or their degrada- 
tion to unworthy ends, we all reprobate as sinful. 
The man with great power for usefulness who 
employs this power to destroy others, to lead them 
astray, to corrupt and poison the fountains of life, 
we condemn as basest of mortals. There are many 
such men, who live to tarnish purity, to spread 
ruin, to disseminate falsehood and to lead the 
unwary to perdition. For these there must be a 
terrible retribution. But the phase of this ques- 



HUMILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 113 

tion which I am now considering is not misuse but 
nonuse of gifts. It is a fearful thing to take a 
faculty given wherewith to bless the world, and use 
it in such a way as to leave blight and woe and 
curse instead of blessing. But it is also a fearful 
thing to fold up the talent and hide it away. It 
is the blighting of our own hope of glory, the 
throwing away of our own crown. 

In a quarry at Baalbec lies the largest wrought 
stone in the world, almost detached and ready for 
transportation, and in the ruined temple of the 
Sun near by is a place still empty and waiting for 
this stone after forty centuries. So large, so grand, 
it was a failure, because it never filled the place 
for which it was designed ; and who can tell how 
many human lives lie among the wastes and ruins 
of life that God intended to fill grand places? 
When they were called they declined to accept the 
responsibility. They folded their talents away and 
buried them, and for ever they will lie in the quar- 
ries, pale ghosts of glorious might-have-beens, 
while the niches in God's temple which they were 
meant to fill and adorn remain for ever empty, 
memorials of their hopeless and irreparable fail- 
ure. It never can be known until the final dis- 
closure how many glorious gifts have thus been 
s 



114 WEEK-BAY RELIGION. 

lost to the world, nor how many lives with grand 
possibilities have shriveled and died under the 
blighting curse of nonuse. 

Responsibilities encircle us about. They make 
solemn all of life's relations. They charge even 
our lightest acts and our unconscious influence 
with the most weighty seriousness. We can only 
fulfill life's grand meaning when we accept every 
responsibility with glad welcome and reverent self- 
confidence. There is a wide difference between 
self-conceit and that proper estimate of one's own 
powers that rates them justly and fairly and is not 
afraid to put them to the test. That self-confi- 
dence is not wrong which leads us to accept with- 
out distrust the responsibilities which God lays at 
our feet. Humility is not meant to make dwarfs 
out of giants. A man of great gifts, in order to 
be humble, is not required to esteem himself a poor 
ungifted and good-for-nothing man. We need to 
revise our ideas of humility. If we must give 
account to God for every gift of usefulness, and 
for its fullest possible exercise, we must honor our 
redeemed powers, appreciate their true value, and 
then devote them to the service of Christ and of 
our fellow-men. 

We are not put into this world for idle ease, but 



HUMILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 115 

for most earnest work. They misunderstood the 
meaning of Christian life who in olden days fled 
away to the deserts and dwelt in huts and caves 
and lonely cells, far from the noise and strife of 
the world, and they misread the divine writing 
also who think in these days to serve Christ only 
in prayer and devotion, while they go not out to 
toil for him. 

"Hark, hark! a voice amid the quiet intense! 

It is thy duty waiting thee without: 
Open thy door straightway and get thee hence; 

Go forth into the tumult and the shout; 
Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about. 

Then, weary, go thou back with failing breath, 
And in thy chamber make thy prayer and moan ; 
One day upon his bosom, all thine own, 

Thou shalt lie still, embraced in holy death." 

There is no such thing as a consecrated life 
which is not consecrated to service. The way to 
spiritual health lies in the paths of toil. The 
reason of* so much doubt and discontent in the 
hearts of Christian people is that so many sit with 
folded hands, with no occupation but brooding 
over their own cares. If they would but go out 
and begin to toil for others, they would forget 
themselves, and the joy of the Lord would flow 
into their souls. There is no way to fulfill life's 



116 WEEK-BAY RELIGION. 

grand meaning and to enter at last into fullest 
joy but by living lives of devotion to duty. 

Let no one, then, hide away from the solemn re- 
sponsibilities of his calling in any imagined hu- 
mility or lowly estimate of his own abilities. 
When God calls us to a work he gives the needed 
strength. Not one of us knows the possibilities of 
usefulness that lie folded up in his hand and brain 
and heart. The Lord can use human feebleness as 
well as human strength. To him that is faithful 
in a little, more is given, and more and more. 

" What are we set on earth for ? Say to toil ; 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines, 
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, 

And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 

God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 
To wrestle, not to reign ; and he assigns 
All thy tears over like pure crystallines 

For younger fellow-workers of the soil 
To wear for amulets. So others shall 

Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, 

From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, 
And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 

The least flower with a brimming cup may stand, 
And share its dewdrop with another near." 



XII. 

NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO. 

"She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair 
Still wiped the feet she was so blessed to touch ; 
And he wiped off the soiling of despair 

From her sweet soul because she loved so much." 

Hartley Coleridge. 

F 1 1HEKE are many people who want to be useful, 
-*- who want to live to help others, who find in- 
superable obstacles in the way. There are some 
to whom they find it quite easy to minister — those 
of lovely character, those who are their friends 
and who readily reciprocate any favors shown to 
them. But it will not do to confine the outgoings 
of their helpfulness and ministry to such small 
classes as these. Even sinners do good to those 
that do good to them and give to those of whom they 
hope to receive again. The Christian is to do 
more. He is even to do good to them that hate 
him. He is to minister to any who need his min- 
istry, despite their character or their treatment of 

117 



118 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

hiin. Even toward unworthy and disagreeable 
people he is to maintain that love that never 
faileth. 

But how can I help one whom I cannot respect ? 
How can I be useful to one who treats me only 
with insults and slights ? 

There is a way of relating ourselves to all men 
about us which solves all these difficulties and 
makes it easy for us to do good to any one. So 
long as we think of ourselves and of what is due 
to us from others, it will be impossible for us to 
minister to very many people. But where true 
Christian love reigns in the heart the centre of life 
falls no longer inside the narrow circle of self. 

Those who study carefully our Lord's life will 
be struck with his wonderful reverence for human 
life. He looked upon no one with disdain or con- 
tempt. The meanest fragment of humanity that 
crept into his presence, trampled, torn, stained, de- 
filed, was yet sacred in his eyes. He never de- 
spised any human being. And, further, he stood 
before men, not as a king, demanding attention, 
reverence, service, but as one who wished to serve, 
to help, to lift up. He said he had not come to be 
ministered unto, but to minister. He never thought 
of what was due from men to him, but always of 



NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO. 119 

what he could do for them, how he could serve 
them. How could it be otherwise, since he came to 
earth solely to save men and since his heart was so 
full of love for them ? Whenever a human being 
stood before him, he saw one in whose heart were 
sorrows which needed sympathy, or one bruised by 
sin needing healing and restoration. Thus he was 
easily able to serve all. The more repulsive the 
life that stood before him, the more deeply, in one 
sense, did it appeal to his love, because it needed 
his help all the more on account of its repulsive- 
ness. 

We shall be prepared to seek the good of others 
in the largest, truest way only when we have 
learned to look upon human lives as our Lord 
did. There was not a poor ruined creature that 
came into his presence in whom he did not see, 
under all the wasting of sin, something that he 
esteemed ..worthy of his love. There was not one 
whom he thought it a degradation to serve. When 
the disciples were quarreling as to which one 
should take the servant's place and wash the feet 
of the others, he quietly arose and performed the 
humble service. He was never more conscious of 
his exalted glory than he was that hour, and yet 
there was no reluctance in his heart. The question 



120 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of their immeasurable inferiority to him never rose 
in his mind. He never thought for a moment that 
these men were not worthy to have such menial 
service performed for them by such hands as his. 
He saw in them something which made it no de- 
gradation even for his divinity to serve them. 
When we have learned to look upon human lives 
as he did it will be no painful task to minister, at 
whatever cost, to the lowliest and most unworthy 
about us. 

We are willing enough to serve those whom we 
honor. But we are apt to hold our lives as too 
sacred to be spent or sacrificed for the sake of those 
whom we regard as beneath ourselves. A tender 
and delicate woman leaves her lovely, sheltered 
home, and finds her way into the fever-wards of 
the city hospital or into the gloomy cells of a 
prison to try to help the suffering or the criminals 
she finds there. A cultured girl turns away from 
comfort and luxury, from circles of loving friends, 
and from social honors and triumphs, and plunges 
into the heart of a heathen land to live out her 
beautiful and golden life in toiling for savages. 
A godly young man turns away from applause 
and ease, and gives himself to the rescue of the 
squalid classes in a great city. On all hands peo- 



NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO. 121 

pie say, "These lives are too precious for such 
work. They are too refined, too beautiful, too 
delicate, too valuable, to be sacrificed in such ser- 
vice." But if there was nothing in that most 
precious, that divine life of the Lord Jesus that 
w r as too good to be poured out in serving such as 
those for whom he gave his life, shall we say that 
any human life is so sacred, so valuable, that it 
may not find fitting employment in serving the 
poorest, the most ignorant, the most squalid men 
and women to be found in prison, in jungle, in 
hospital, in dreary tenement or wretched garret? 

When we learn to measure others, not by their 
rank and station, but by the worth of their spirit- 
ual nature, by their immortality, by the possibil- 
ities that lie in the most ruined life, it will be no 
longer humiliating for us to do even the humblest 
service for the least of God's creatures. Then there 
will be nothing in us that will seem too rich or too 
sacred to be poured out for the sake even of the 
most despised. We may honor ourselves and may 
be conscious of all the power and dignity of our 
lives as God's children, and yet not think ourselves 
too good to minister to the smallest and the least. 

There is no other attitude in which we can stand 
to those about us in which we can fulfill the law 



1 22 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

of Christian love, which requires us to do good to 
all men. We must not think of ourselves as de- 
serving attention from others. We are not in this 
world to be made much of, to be waited upon and 
served. The moment we begin to relate ourselves 
in this way to others we cease to be largely help- 
ful, or helpful at all in the Christian sense. We 
measure every one then by his ability and will- 
ingness to serve us. We rate others as they are, 
in our estimation, agreeable or disagreeable. Re- 
pulsiveness repels us because we think of it only 
in its effect upon our own feelings and tastes. We 
love pleasant people only, are kind only to those 
that are kind to us, and serve only those whom we 
regard as honorable and worthy. Rude treatment 
from others shuts our hearts toward them. In a 
word, we do nothing from disinterested motives and 
seek always our own. This may make us very 
pleasant and agreeable in the small circle of our 
personal friends, and even in business and social 
life, but it is infinitely removed from the spirit 
and practice of true Christian love and service. 

We are to regard ourselves as the servants of 
others for Jesus' sake. We are to put ourselves 
before men as our Master did, not asking what 
benefit or help we can get from them, but what we 



NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO. 123 

can do for them. It will be seen at a glance that if 
we look upon others in this disinterested way, our 
hearts yearning to do them good, the whole aspect 
of the world will be changed. We are not here to 
receive and to gather, but to give and to scatter — 
not to be served and treated generously, but to 
serve regardless of men's character or their treat- 
ment of us. This invests every human life with 
a wondrous sacredness. It brings down our pride 
and keeps it under our feet. It changes scorn to 
compassion. It softens our tones and takes from 
us our haughty, dictatorial spirit. Instead of be- 
ing repelled by men's moral repulsiveness, our pity 
is stirred and our hearts go out in deep, loving 
longing to heal and to bless them. Instead of 
being offended by men's rudeness and unkindness, 
we bear patiently with their faults, hoping to do 
them good. Nothing that they may do to us turns 
our love to hate. We continue to seek their inte- 
rest despite their slights, insults and cruelties. We 
are glad to spend and be spent for others even 
though the more abundantly we love them the less 
they love us. 

With this spirit it is no longer hard to do good 
to the most disagreeable people, to help the most 
unworthy. It is easy, then, to love our enemies 



124 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

in the only way it is possible for us to love them. 
We cannot love them as we do our friends. We 
cannot approve their faults or commend their im- 
moralities or make black white. We cannot make 
ourselves think their characters beautiful when they 
are full of repulsiveness, or their conduct right 
when it is manifestly wrong. Love plays no such 
tricks with our moral perceptions. It does not 
hoodwink us or make us color-blind. It does not 
make us tolerant of sin or indifferent to men's 
blemishes. Christ never lowered, by so much as a 
hair's breadth, the perfect standard of holiness by 
which he measured all men and all life. Nor must 
we. We are ever to keep living in our souls the 
pure and unspotted ideal. We are not to look 
upon any sin leniently or apologetically, and yet 
we are to love the sinner, to pity him and have 
compassion upon him, and instead of turning away 
from him in horror and self-righteous pride we are 
to seek by every means to lift him up and save 
him. Under all the ruin of his sin is the shat- 
tered beauty of the divine image which the gentle 
fingers of love may repair and restore. 



XIII. 

WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING. 

" rilHE beginning is half of the whole," said the 
-*- ancient Greeks. And it is true — true 
whether the beginning be right or wrong. And 
yet a good beginning is not enough. It is the last 
step that wins in the race. It is the last stroke 
that fells the tree. It is the last grain of sand that 
turns the scales. One of the sterling virtues in 
practical life is continuance — continuance through 
all obstacles, hindrances and discouragements. It 
is unconquerable persistence that wins. The paths 
of life are strewn with the skeletons of those who 
fainted and fell in the march. Life's prizes can be 
won only by those who will not fail. Success in 
every field must be reached through antagonism 
and conflict. 

In no sphere are these things truer than in the 
moral. Many start well in the Christian life, with 
rich hope and glowing ardor, who soon fail. They 

125 



126 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

become discouraged at the hardness and toilsome- 
ness of the way or at the little impression they are 
able to make on the world, and grow weary. Such 
faint-heartedness will never win the honors and 
crowns of immortal life. These are only for those 
who overcome. 

There are two ways of becoming weary in well- 
doing. We may be weary in it or of it. And 
there is an immense difference in the two experi- 
ences. The best men may grow weary in their ser- 
vice. Human nature is frail. We are not angels, 
with exhaustless powers of endurance. But we are 
to guard against growing w T eary of our great work, 
as sometimes we are tempted even to be. There 
are discouragements that sorely try our faith, but, 
whatever they are, they should not be allowed to 
cause us to faint. 

" What is the use of serving God ?" cries one. 
" I have tried for years to be faithful to him and 
to live as he would have me to live, but somehow 
I do not succeed in life. I have no blessing on 
my work. My business does not prosper. There 
is my neighbor, who never prays, who disregards 
the precepts of God's word, who desecrates the 
Lord's day, whose life is unjust, hard, false and 
selfish. And yet he gets along far better than I 



WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING. 127 

do. What is the profit of serving God ?" Many 
a good man has felt thus in his heart, even if he 
has not spoken his thoughts aloud. 

To all this it may be replied that God's years 
are long and he is never in a hurry. As a good 
Christian man said to a scoffer who boasted that 
his crops were good though he had never prayed 
for God to bless them, while the Christian's after all 
his praying, had failed, " The Lord does not always 
settle his accounts with men in the month of Octo- 
ber." Besides, worldly prosperity is not always 
promised, nor is it always a blessing. There come 
many times in every man's life when trial is better 
than prosperity. A little with Heaven's bene- 
diction is better than great gains poisoned by the 
curse of God. Of this at least we may always 
be sure — that in the end well-doing will suc- 
ceed and ill-doing w^ill bring sorrow and woe. 
"My Lord Cardinal," said Anne of Austria to 
Cardinal Richelieu, " God is a sure paymaster. 
He may not pay at the close of every week or 
month or year, but he pays in the end." 

We may be tempted also to grow weary of doing 
good to others. There are things to discourage if 
we look no farther than the present. Attainments 
come slowly. The buds of spiritual growth open 



128 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

out languidly in the chill climate of this world. 
Men's faults cling tenaciously. Battles are tedious 
and victories come painfully, and only after long 
and fierce struggle. Everything about Christian 
life is difficult of attainment. In the ardor of his 
youthful zeal and the glow of his yet untried and 
unbaffled hope, the young Christian is apt to feel 
that everything is going to yield at once to his 
strokes. He expects to see every touch of his tell 
on men. He looks for immediate results in every 
case. He has large hope and enthusiasm, but has 
not strong faith. He begins, and soon discovers his 
mistake. People are pleased with his earnestness, 
but their stubborn hearts do not yield. He finds 
himself beating against stone walls. Results do 
not appear. To him this is strange and discour- 
aging, but it has always been so. Many people 
reject the blessings God is sending to their doors. 
We come to them laden with rich spiritual things, 
and they turn away to chase some vanishing illu- 
sion. We tell them of Christ, and they turn to 
listen to the siren song that would lure them on 
the rocks of ruin. That this is disheartening 
cannot be denied. 

But does not God behold our work ? Does he 
not see our toil and our tears ? Does he not witness 



WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING. 129 

our faithfulness in his service ? Suppose the seed 
does fall partly on the hard-trodden roadway and 
yield no fruit ; will the sower fail of his reward ? 
Will he be forgotten in that day when God re- 
members his faithful ones ? No ! Though men 
may reject your message, if you have given it 
faithfully and with true motive, you shall be 
blessed. 

"But men are ungrateful." Very true. You 
minister to those who are in need, taking the bread 
from your own plate to feed their hunger, deny- 
ing yourself necessary things to give to them ; you 
visit and care for them in sickness ; you spend time 
and money to relieve them. Then, so soon as the 
trouble is past and they need your money or help 
no longer, they turn away from you as if you had 
wronged them. Almost rarest of human virtues 
is true gratitude. The one may return, but the 
nine come no more. Many a faithful Christian, 
having spent time and means in relieving distress 
only to be forgotten by, and perhaps even to receive 
wrong from, those he has aided, becomes weary, 
and says, " It is of no use ; I will try it no more." 

I know how much sweeter it is to work for 
those who are grateful, who remember our kind- 
ness, who speak their thanks and return love for 



130 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

every favor shown. It lightens one's burdens. 
Grateful words are like cups of cold water to one 
who is weary and faint; and surely it is fit that 
men should be grateful. 

But suppose they are not. Suppose years of 
kindness are forgotten in a moment. Suppose 
great sacrifices are never thought of again. Sup- 
pose deeds of love are rewarded with insult, injury, 
calumny, wrong, or with the stab of malice. Do 
these returns rob you of those higher rewards 
which God promises to every self-denial made for 
his sake? Suppose one has to go through this 
world weary and lonely, giving out his life in un- 
sparing measure for others, and receiving only 
neglect, ingratitude, even persecution. Suppose 
one is misunderstood, as so many good people are, 
his motives misrepresented, misconstrued, falsified. 
Suppose one is maligned, calumniated, abused. 
Because earth misconstrues and misunderstands, 
will heaven ? No ; there is one place where men 
are understood and their work and worth appre- 
ciated. No good deed will be forgotten there. 
No lowly sacrifice will be overlooked. There will 
be commendation and reward there. We may not 
reap here, but we shall reap nevertheless. 

Then many who appeal to us for aid are utterly 



WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING. 131 

unworthy. Those who dispense charity have to 
resort to all manner of care and pains to protect 
themselves against imposition. A pitiful story is 
told — pitiful enough to melt the heart of a miser. 
You give money, and the treacherous recipient 
steals into the nearest dram-shop and spends it 
for strong drink. Or you ask where the appli- 
cant lives, and, being reluctantly informed, you go 
miles away, to find that no such person ever lived 
there. The result of such discoveries, unless we 
are careful, is that the warmest hearts are closed 
against all appeals for help. The tendency is to 
chill and freeze the fountains of our charity and 
to stay their outflow toward the needy. We are 
tempted to say, " Giving money is only throwing 
it away; it is charity wasted as utterly as fra- 
grance in the desert." 

It certainly is disheartening to labor for months 
to try to help some one, only to have him prove 
unworthy in the end. It seems like building a 
house of the costliest materials in a quagmire 
only to sink away out of sight. Yet they are dig- 
ging up in these days buried palaces and cities in 
the Old World which have long been hidden out 
of sight. So work may seem to sink away and be 
lost, but God will let nothing be lost that is done 



132 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

for his name. It will reappear in the end. He 
is faithful, and will not forget your work and labor 
of love. You will be rewarded, even though your 
work has been expended on unworthy beneficiaries. 
Though the recipient of your charity turned out 
an impostor, yet, if it was bestowed in Christ's 
name and for his sake, he will say at the last, 
"Ye did it unto me." 

Another is discouraged because there seems no 
blessing on his work. 

You are a parent, and you have been laboring 
and praying for years for your child's salvation, yet 
you do not see the hoped-for result. You are a 
teacher, and although you toil with all your might, 
you do not notice any impression on the lives of 
those you teach. Or you are a preacher, and you 
preach with all diligence and faithfulness, but men 
do not turn to the Lord, and you are heavy-heart- 
ed and sometimes tempted to give it all up in de- 
spair. 

But do you really know that your work is not 
blessed ? Do you know that there are no results ? 
Things are not what they seem. The quickest, 
most evident successes, as they appear to us, are 
often in reality the worst failures. The least comes 
of them in the end. In Christian work we have 



WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING. 133 

frequently to discount sudden and tropical growths, 
or at least to fear for their genuineness and perma- 
nence. The quiet and gradual growth is usually 
the truest. 

Then we cannot measure spiritual results as we 
can those which are physical. The artist sees the 
picture growing upon his canvas as he works day 
by day. The builder sees the wall rising as he 
lays stone upon stone. But the spiritual builder 
is working with invisible blocks, is rearing a fabric 
whose walls he cannot see. The spiritual artist is 
painting away in the unseen. His eyes cannot be- 
hold the impressions, the touches of beauty he 
makes. 

Sometimes the results of work on human lives 
may be seen in the expansion and beautifying of 
character, in the conversion of the ungodly, in the 
comforting of sorrow, in the uplifting and enno- 
bling of the degraded ; and yet much of our work 
must be done in simple faith, and perhaps in hea- 
ven it will be seen that the best results of our 
lives have been from their unconscious influences, 
and our most fruitful efforts those we considered 
in vain. 

The old water-wheel turns round and round out- 
side the wall. It seems to be idle work that it is 



134 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

doing. You see nothing accomplished. But its 
shaft runs through the mill-wall and turns a great 
system of machinery there, and makes bread to feed 
many a hungry mouth. So we toil away, many 
of us, and oftentimes see no rewards or fruits. 
But if we are true to God, we are making results 
somewhere for his glory and the good of others. 
The shaft runs through into the unseen and turns 
wheels there, preparing blessings and food for 
hungry lives. No true work for Christ can ever 
fail. Somewhere, some time, somehow, there will 
be results. We need not be discouraged or dis- 
heartened, for in due time we shall reap if we 
faint not. But what if we faint ? 



XIV. 

WAYSIDE MINISTRIES. 

"I expect to pass through this world but once. If, there- 
fore, there be any kindness I can do to any fellow- being, let 
me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall 
not pass this way again." 

r 1 1HERE are two ways in which all of us work, 
-*- and two classes of results which flow from our 
lives. There are things we do purposely — that we 
deliberately plan to do. We take pains to do them. 
We spend long years oftentimes in fitting ourselves 
to do them. They cost us thought and care. We 
travel many miles, perchance, to perform them. 
They are the things we live to do. 

Then there are other things we do that have 
formed no part of our plan. We did not set out 
in the morning to accomplish them. They are 
unplanned, unpurposed things, not premeditated 
or prearranged. They are wayside ministries. 
They are the little things we do between the greater 
things. They are the seeds we drop by chance from 

135 



136 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

our hand in the path as we go out to the broad 
field to sow. They are the minor kindnesses and 
courtesies that fill up the interstices of our busy 
days. They are the little flowers and lowly plants 
that grow in the shade of the majestic trees or hid- 
den away like violets under the taller plants and 
shrubs. They are the smaller opportunities of 
usefulness which open to us as we carry our great 
responsibilities. They are the things of which we 
take no note, and perhaps retain no memory — mere 
touches given as we hasten by, words dropped as 
we pass along. 

We set no store by this part of our life-work. 
We do not expect to see any result from it. We 
pride ourselves on our great masterpieces. We 
point to them as the things which fitly represent 
us, the things in which we hope to live. 

And yet oftentimes these unpurposed things are 
the holiest and most beautiful things we do, far 
outshining those which we ourselves prize so highly. 
I believe that when the books are opened it will be 
seen that the very best parts of many lives are the 
parts by which they set no store and from which 
they expected no outcome, no fruits, while the things 
they took pride in and wrought with plan and 
pains shall prove to be of but small value. Our 



WAYSIDE MINISTRIES. 137 

Lord tells us that the righteous shall be surprised 
in the judgment to hear of noble deeds wrought 
by them of which they have no knowledge or 
recollection. JSTo doubt there is a wondrous amount 
of good done unconsciously of which the doers 
shall never be aware until it is disclosed in the 
future life. 

It is said that when Thorwaldsen, the Danish 
sculptor, returned to his native land with those 
rare works of art which have made his name 
immortal, chiseled in Italy with patient toil and 
glowing inspiration, the servants who unpacked 
the marbles scattered upon the ground the straw 
which was wrapped around them. The next sum- 
mer flowers from the gardens of Rome were bloom- 
ing in the streets of Copenhagen from the seeds 
thus borne and planted by accident. While pur- 
suing his glorious purpose and leaving magnificent 
results in breathing marble, he was at the same 
time, and unconsciously, scattering other beautiful 
things in his path to give cheer and gladness. 

And so, in all true living, while men execute 
their greater plans, they are ever unintentionally 
performing a series of secondary acts which often 
yield most beneficent and farreaching results. 
There is a wayside ministry, for instance, made up 



138 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of countless little courtesies, gentle words, mere 
passing touches on the lives of those we meet 
casually, impulses given by our salutations, influ- 
ences flowing indirectly from the things we do 
and the words we speak — a ministry undesigned, 
unplanned, unnoted, merely incidental — and yet it 
is impossible to measure the results of these acci- 
dents of usefulness. 

We go out in the morning to our round of duties, 
and perform them with more or less faithfulness 
and effectiveness. But during the busy hours of 
the day we find opportunity for doing many minor 
kindnesses. We meet a friend on the street whose 
heart is heavy, and we stop to speak a word of 
thoughtful cheer and hope which sings in his ear 
like a bar of angels' song all day long. We ring a 
neighbor's door-bell, as we go out from dinner, to 
inquire for his sick child, and there is a little more 
brightness in that sad home all the afternoon be- 
cause of this though tfulness. We walk a few steps 
with a young man who is in danger of slipping out 
of the way, and let fall a sincere word of interest 
which he will remember and which may help to 
save him. 

All sorts of people come to us on all sorts of 
errands during the day. We cannot talk much to 



WAYSIDE MINISTRIES. 139 

each, and yet we may drop into each heart a word 
of kindness that will prove a seed of beauty. We 
meet people in business relations. To talk to 
them on religious themes may be neither practi- 
cable nor expedient. And yet there is not one of 
them to w T hom we may not minister in some way. 
One man has had sorrow in his home. His face 
carries the marks of sore struggle and inward pain. 
By a gentler bearing, a mellowed speech, a heartier 
hand-grasp or longer pressure, and a thoughtful ex- 
pression of the sympathy and interest we feel, we 
send him away strangely comforted. Another is 
staggering under financial burdens, and a hopeful 
word gives him courage to stand more bravely 
under his load. We are writing business letters, 
and we put in a personal sentence or a kindly in- 
quiry, revealing a human heart even amid the 
great clashing, grinding wheels of business, and it 
carries a pulse of better feeling into some dingy of- 
fice and some dreary treadmill life far away. Not 
one of these things have we done with any clear 
thought, or even consciousness, of doing good, and 
yet, like the flower-seeds the sculptor bore back 
amid the wrappings of his marbles, they yield 
loveliness and fragrance to brighten many a bare 
and toilsome path. 



140 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Social life presents also countless opportunities 
for these wayside ministries. It would be hard to 
imagine anything more icy and cold, more devoid 
of the sweet charities of life, than much of the 
formal intercourse of society, especially in circles 
of wealth and fashion. It is regulated by arbitrary 
rules which leave no room for tender heart-play. 
It is oftentimes insincere. The staple of its con- 
versation is the emptiest of idle gossip or the most 
merciless dissection of character. 

And yet what opportunities does this very social 
intercourse afford for the most beautiful wayside 
ministries ! What words of kindness can be 
spoken ! how often, too, where they are most sorely 
needed and craved ! There are hearts starving 
under these icy formalities. There are gentle 
spirits amid all this mad whirl that long for some- 
thing true and real. There are sorrows under all 
this glitter. The doors are shut to those who come 
professedly to bring blessing. Even Christ stands 
outside, perchance, knocking in vain. There is no 
open entrance to any who would come with avowed 
intent to do good. And yet the Christian woman 
who enters the doors, even in the most formal way, 
may carry with her Heaven's sweetest benedictions. 
Many earnest Christians in early, primitive days vol- 



WAYSIDE MINISTRIES. 141 

untarily became slaves to gain access to the homes 
of the noble that they might at least live out the 
holy religion of Jesus in the heart of their house- 
holds, and perchance win souls for heaven. Mis- 
sionaries study medicine that they may be admitted 
into the homes of the people as physicians, and 
while there in that capacity they cannot but scatter 
some of the holy fragrance of the love of Christ. 
To those w^hose hearts are full of the spirit of 
grace there are large opportunities for quiet and un- 
purposed usefulness opened in the formalities of 
social life. There need be nothing ostentatious : 
indeed, ostentation shuts the door at once. What 
is wanted is a deep and sincere piety that breathes 
out unconsciously in face and word and act and 
manner, like the fragrance of a flower, like the 
shining of a star, like the irresistible charm of 
rare beauty or tender music. Indeed, its uncon- 
sciousness is its greatest power. She who goes 
intending to say certain things or carry certain 
blessings or leave certain influences may fail. But, 
going from house to house with a soul full of good- 
ness, purity and love, with a heart sincerely long- 
ing to leave blessing everywhere, with a speech 
seasoned with grace and breathing kindness and 
peace, it is impossible not to leave heavenly influ- 



142 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

ences in every drawing-room. Impulses are given 
to better life. Strength is imparted to struggling 
weakness. Comfort is breathed softly into hearts 
that are sore with grief. Flowers from heaven's 
gardens are planted in earthly soil. Glimpses into 
a new and richer life are given. No woman with 
deep piety in her heart and Christlike grace in her 
life can go in and out in the formal routine of so- 
cial life and not unwittingly perform a blessed 
ministry of good, leaving behind her many a bit 
of brightness and many a lovely flower. 

A lthough unnoted on earth and unprized, the re- 
sults of such ministry may outshine in splendor, in 
the great disclosure, the things to which most toil 
and thought have been given. 

In every life there are these opportunities for 
wayside ministry. Indeed, the voluntary activities 
of any life do not by any means measure its influ- 
ence. The things we do w 7 ith deliberate intention 
make but a small part of the sum-total of our 
life-results. Our influence has no nights and keeps 
no Sabbaths. It is continuous as life itself. We 
are leaving impressions all the while on other lives. 
There is a ministry in our handshaking, in our 
greeting, in the most casual conversation, in the 
very expression we wear on our faces as we move 



WAYSIDE MINISTRIES. 143 

along the street, in the gentle sympathy that adds 
such a thrill of strength to fainting weariness, 

" Like moonlight on a troubled sea, 
Brightening the storm it cannot calm." 

To meet some people on the sidewalk and have 
their cheery " Good-morning !" makes one happier 
all day. To encounter others is as dispiriting as 
meeting a funeral-procession. There is a magic 
potency always in a sunny face. There is a holy 
aroma always about unselfish love. A joyful per- 
son scatters gladness like song-notes. A conse- 
crated Christian life sheds a tender warmth wherever 
it moves. What a wondrous sphere of usefulness 
is thus opened to every one of us ! Preparation for 
it is best made by heart-culture. 

It is purity, truth, helpfulness and love that sanc- 
tify the influence. Full of Christ, wherever we 
move we leave brightness and joy. Amid the 
busiest scenes, when engaged in the most momen- 
tous labors, we carry on at the same time a quiet, 
unpurposed ministry whose results shall spring up 
in our pathway like lovely flowers, or echo again in 
the hearts of others in notes of holy song, or glow 
in human lives in touches of radiant beauty. 



XV. 

THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 

In one of his poems Robert Browning represents the arch- 
angel Gabriel taking a poor boy's place: 

"Then to his poor trade he turned 
By which the daily bread was earned; 
And ever o'er the trade he bent, 
And ever lived on earth content ; 
He did God's will — to him all one 
If on the earth or in the sun." 

11 /T ANY people measure a man's power or effect- 
-***-*- iveness by the noise he makes in the world. 
But this standard is not always correct. The drum 
makes vastly more noise than the flute, but for true, 
soul-thrilling music and soothing power the flute 
is a thousand times more effective. Young men, 
when they start in life, usually think they must 
make all the noise they can, else their lives will be 
failures. They must make their voices heard loud 
above the din and clamor of the world, else they 
must remain unknown and die in obscurity. But 
thoughtful, observant years always prove how little 

144 



THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 145 

real power there is in " the bray of brass." Life is 
measured by its final and permanent results. Not 
by the place a man occupies before the public and 
the frequency and loudness of his utterances, but 
by the benefits and blessings which he leaves be- 
hind him in other lives, must his true effectiveness 
be rated. It will be seen, in the great consumma- 
tion, that those who have wrought silently and with- 
out clamor or fame have in many cases achieved 
the most glorious permanent results. 

"What shall I do lest life in silence pass? 

And if it do, 
And never prompt the bray of brass, 

What need'st thou rue? 
Remember aye the ocean's deeps are mute — 

The shallows roar; 
Worth is the ocean : fame is the bruit 

Along the shore." 

There are great multitudes of lowly lives lived 
on the earth which have no name among men, 
whose work no pen records, no marble immortal- 
izes, but which are well known and unspeakably 
dear to God, and whose influence will be seen, in 
the end, to reach to farthest shores. They make no 
noise in the world, but it needs not noise to make 
a life beautiful and noble. Many of God's most 

potent ministries are noiseless. How silently all 
10 



146 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

day long the sunbeams fall upon the fields and 
gardens ! and yet what cheer, what inspiration, what 
life and beauty, they diffuse! How silently the 
flowers bloom ! and yet what rich blessings of fra- 
grance do they emit ! How silently the stars move 
on in their majestic marches around God's throne ! 
and yet the telescope shows us that they are mighty 
worlds or great central suns representing utterly 
incalculable power. How silently the angels work, 
stepping with noiseless tread through our homes and 
performing ever their tireless ministries for us and 
about us ! Who hears the flutter of their wings or 
the w T hisper of their tongues? and yet they throng 
along our path and bring rich joys of comfort, 
suggestion, protection, guidance and strength to 
us every day. How silently God himself works ! 
He gives his blessing while we sleep. He makes 
no ado. We hear not his footfalls, and yet he is 
ever moving about us and ministering to us in ten 
thousand ways and bringing to us the rarest and 
finest gifts of his love. Then who does not re- 
member the noiselessness of our Lord's human life 
on the earth? He did not strive or cry, nor did 
men hear his voice on the street. He sought not, 
but rather shunned, publicity and notoriety. His 
wondrous power was life-power, heart-power, which 



THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 147 

he shed forth in silent influence among the people, 
but which is pulsing yet in all lands, in millions 
of hearts, and in all the vast abodes of redeemed 
spirits. 

And many of our Lord's earthly servants have 
caught his spirit, and work so quietly that they are 
scarcely recognized among men as workers. In 
their humility they do not even suppose themselves 
to be of any use and mourn over their unprofit- 
ableness as Christ's servants, and yet in heaven 
they are written down as among the very noblest 
of his ministers. They do no great things, but 
their lives are full of radiations of blessing. There 
is a quiet and unconscious influence ever going 
forth from them that falls like a benediction on 
every life that comes into their shadow ; for it is 
not only our elaborately- wrought deeds that leave 
results behind. Much of the best work we do in 
this world is done unconsciously. There are many 
people who are so busied in what is called secular 
toil that they can find few moments to give to 
works of benevolence. But they come out every 
morning from the presence of God and go to their 
daily business or toil, and all day, as they move 
about, they drop gentle words from their lips and 
scatter seeds of kindness along their path. To- 



1 48 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

morrow flowers of the garden of God spring up 
in the hard, dusty streets of earth and along the 
paths of toil in which their feet have trodden. 

More than once in the Scriptures the lives of 
God's people in this world are compared to the 
dew. There may be other points of analogy, but 
especially noteworthy is the quiet manner in which 
the dew performs its ministry. It falls silently 
and imperceptibly. It makes no noise. No one 
hears it dropping. It chooses the darkness of the 
night, when men are sleeping and when no one can 
witness its beautiful work. It covers the leaves 
with clusters of pearls. It steals into the bosom 
of the flower, and leaves a new cupful of sweetness 
there. It pours itself down among the roots of 
the grasses and tender herbs and plants. In the 
morning there is fresh beauty everywhere, and new 
life. The fields look greener, the gardens are more 
fragrant and all nature glows and sparkles with a 
new splendor. 

Is there no suggestion here as to the manner in 
which we should seek to do good in this world? 
Should it not be our aim to have our influence felt 
rather than to be seen and heard? Should we 
not desire to scatter blessings so silently and so 
secretly that no one shall know what hand dropped 



THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 149 

them? The whole spirit of our Lord's teaching 
confirms this : " When thou doest thine alms, let 
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, 
that thine alms may be in secret." We are com- 
manded not to seek the praise of men — not to do 
good deeds to be seen of men or to receive reward 
of them. We are not to sound trumpets or an- 
nounce our righteous acts from the housetop. 

Translated into the phrase of daily life, these 
injunctions would seem to mean that we are not 
to seek to have all our benevolent acts published 
in the newspapers. They would seem to mean 
that we should not desire publicity and human 
praise for every generous thing we do, every sacri- 
fice we make and every kindness we show. They 
seem, indeed, to imply that we should even take 
pains not to have our good deeds made known at 
all — that we should seek to perform them so silent- 
ly and secretly that the world may never hear any 
report of them. When the motive is to receive 
praise of men or to exhibit our goodness, the act 
loses its beauty in God's sight. 

This test applied may find many of us wanting. 
Are we willing to be as the dew — to steal abroad 
in the darkness, carrying blessings to men's doors 
which shall enrich them and do them good and 



150 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

give them joy, and then steal away again before 
they awake to know what hand brought the gift ? 
Are we willing to work without gratitude, without 
recognition, without human praise, without return ? 
Are w T e content to have our lives poured out like 
the dew to bless the world and make it more fruit- 
ful, and yet to remain hidden away ourselves — to 
see the effects of our toil and sacrifice all about 
us in brightened homes and bettered character, in 
beauties and joys springing up, in renewed society, 
in good institutions, and in benefits prepared by 
our hands and enjoyed by others, and yet never to 
hear our names spoken in praise or honor, perhaps 
to hear the shouts of applause given to the names 
of others ? 

And yet is it not thus that we are to live as fol- 
lowers of Christ? Honor is to be sought for him. 
We are to seek to be blessings in the world, to 
breathe inspiration everywhere, to shed quickening 
influences upon other lives, to impart helpfulness 
and noble impulse to all we meet, and then to dis- 
appear, so that men may not praise us, but may 
lift their hearts to Christ alone. Florence Nightin- 
gale, having gone like an angel of mercy among 
the hospitals in the Crimea until her name was 
enshrined in every soldier's heart, asked to be ex- 



THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 151 

cused from having her picture taken, as thousands 
begged, that she might drop out and be forgotten, 
and that Christ alone might be remembered as the 
author of the blessings her hands had ministered. 
That is the true Christian spirit. 

And in this way we may all learn to live too 
if we will. In this way countless lowly ones have 
lived, and are living continually. 

There are mothers who sometimes fret because 
their spheres of usefulness seem so circumscribed. 
They long to be able to do grand things, like the 
few who dre lifted above the common level, and 
to be permitted to live their lives on the mountain- 
top in the gaze of the world. But they, in very 
truth, have far grander fields than they dream. 
No one who lives for God and for love can be 
called obscure. Do not the angels watch? Does 
not all heaven behold? Is any one obscure who 
has heaven for an amphitheatre ? Then who can 
tell the mighty, farreaching influence of the life 
of a lowly mother who lives for her children? 
Mothers have lived in hardship and obscurity, 
training sons to move the world, and they have 
lived to good purpose. 

The best work of the true parent and teacher is 
quiet, unconscious work. It is not what a man 



152 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

says or does purposely and with direct intention 
that leaves the deepest mark in the world and in 
other lives, but it is the unconscious, unpurposed 
influences which go out from him like the per- 
fumes from a garden, whether he wakes or sleeps, 
whether he is present or absent. God seems to 
blight the things that we are proud of and to make 
them come to naught. Then, when we are not 
intending to do anything grand, he uses us and our 
work for noble purposes and to make lasting im- 
pressions on the world and its life. 

It is the quiet, unheralded lives that are silently 
building up the kingdom of heaven. Not much 
note is taken of them here. They are not report- 
ed in the newspapers. Their monuments will not 
make much show in the churchyard. Their names 
will not be passed down to posterity with many 
wreaths about them. But their work is blessed, 
and not one of them is forgotten. 

Long, long centuries ago a little fern-leaf grew 
in a valley. Its veins were delicate and its fibres 
tender. It was very beautiful, but it fell and per- 
ished. It seemed useless and lost, for surely it 
had made no history and left no impression in this 
world. But wait. The other day a thoughtful 
man searching Nature's secrets came with pick 



THE BEAUTY OF QUIET LIVES. 153 

and hammer and broke off a piece of rock, and 
there on it his eyes traced 

" Fairy pencilings, a quaint design, 
Leafage, veining, fibres, clear and fine, 
And the fern's life lay in every line. 
So, I think, God hides some souls away, 
Sweetly to surprise us at the last day." 

Not a life lived for God is useless or lost. The 
lowliest writes its history and leaves its impression 
somewhere, and God will open his books at the 
last, and men and angels will read the record. In 
this world these quiet lives are like those modest 
lowly flowers which make no show, but which 
hidden away under the tall plants and grasses, pour 
out sweet perfumes and fill the air with their odors. 
And in heaven they will receive their reward — not 
praise of men, but open confession by the Lord 
himself — in the presence of the angels and of the 
Father. 



XVI. 

KINDNESS THAT COMES TOO LATE. 

" What use for the rope if it be not flung 
Till the swimmer's grasp to the rock has clung? 
What help in a comrade's bugle-blast 
When the peril of Alpine heights is past? 
What need that the spurring paean roll 
When the runner is safe beyond the goal? 
What worth is eulogy's blandest breath 
When whispered in ears that are hushed in death ? 
No, no ! If you have but a word of cheer, 
Speak it while I am alive to hear." 

Mrs. Preston. 

HAVE always been glad that there was one 
J ~ who brought out her alabaster vase and anointed 
the Lord beforehand for his burial. Most persons 
would have waited, keeping the vase sealed, till he 
was dead, and would then have broken it to anoint 
his body when it lay, torn, wounded and cold, 
wrapped in the garments of burial. But she did 
not wait. She opened the jar while he could enjoy 
its sweet perfume, and when his worn and weary 
feet could feel the delicious refreshment which it 
gave. 

154 



KINDNESS THAT COMES TOO LATE. 155 

We have not to read between the lines to find 
the lesson. When one dies there is no lack of ala- 
baster boxes to be brought from their hiding-places 
and unsealed. The kindest words are spoken then. 
Not a voice of faultfinding is heard in the dark- 
ened room where the dead form reposes in silence. 
A thousand pleasant things are said. A gentle 
charity covers and hides all his mistakes, and even 
his follies and sins. His life is talked over, and 
memory is busy gathering out the beautiful things 
he has done, the self-denials he has made and the 
kindnesses he has wrought for the poor along the 
years of his life. Every one that knew him comes 
and looks on his pale face and says some generous 
word about him, recalling some favor received from 
his hands or some noble deed wrought by him. 
Near friends go to the florist and order flowers, 
woven into anchors, crosses, harps, pillars or crowns, 
to be sent with their card and laid upon his coffin. 

There is nothing wrong in all this. Flowers on 
the coffin are beautiful. When a Christian sleeps 
there they are fit symbols of the hope in which he 
rests. Then they seem to whisper sweet secrets of 
comfort for sorrowing hearts. They tell, too, of 
kindly feelings and gentle remembrances outside 
the darkened homes while hearts are breaking 



156 WEEK-BAY RELIGION, 

within. They are the tokens of love and respect 
for the dead. There can be nothing inappropriate 
in the placing of a few choice flowers upon a coffin 
or on the bosom of the dead. 

It is fitting, too, that kind words should be 
spoken even when the ear cannot hear them or the 
heart be warmed and thrilled by them. There is 
no richer tribute to a human life than the sincere 
witness of sorrowing friends around the coffin and 
the grave. It is natural that many a tender sleep- 
ing memory should be awakened at the touch of 
death. It is natural that when we have lost our 
friends all the sealed vases of affection should be 
broken open to anoint them for the last time. It 
is well that even death has power to stop the tongue 
of detraction, to subdue enmities, jealousies and 
emulations, to reveal the hitherto unappreciated 
beauties and excellences of a man's character, to 
cover with the veil of charity his blemishes and 
faults, and to thaw out the tender thoughts, the 
laggard gratitude and the long-slumbering kindly 
feelings in the hearts of his neighbors and friends. 

But meantime there is a great host of weary 
men and women toiling through life toward the 
grave who sorely need just now the cheering words 
and helpful ministries which we can give. The 



KINDNESS THAT COMES TOO LATE. 157 

incense is gathering to scatter about their coffins, 
but why should it not be scattered in their paths 
to-day ? The kind words are lying in men's hearts 
unexpressed, and trembling on their tongues un- 
voiced, which will be spoken by and by when these 
weary ones are sleeping, but why should they not 
be spoken now, when they are needed so much, 
and when their accents would be so pleasing and 
grateful ? 

Many a good man goes through life plain, plod- 
ding, living obscurely, yet living a true, honest, 
Christian life, making many a self-denial to serve 
others, doing many a quiet kindness to his neighbors 
and friends, who scarcely ever hears a word of thanks 
or cheer or generous commendation. He may hear 
many criticisms and many expressions of dispar- 
agement, but no approving words come to his ears. 
If his friends have pleasant things to say about 
him, they manage so to speak them that he will not 
hear them. Perhaps they are not uttered at all. 
Those he loves and toils for may be grateful, but 
their gratitude lies in their hearts like fruit-buds 
in the branches in February. The vases filled 
with kindly appreciation are kept sealed. The 
flowers are not cut from the stem. 

You stand by his coffin, and there are enough 



158 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

kind things said there to have brightened every 
hour of his life if they had been said at the right 
time. There are enough flowers piled upon his 
casket to have kept his chamber filled with fra- 
grance through all his years if they had only been 
wisely scattered in daily clusters. How his heavy 
heart would have leaped and thanked God if he 
could have heard some of the expressions of affec- 
tion and approval in the midst of life's painful 
strifes, and when staggering under its burdens, 
which are now wasted on ears that hear them not ! 
How much happier his life would have been, and 
how much more useful, if he had known, amid his 
disappointments and anxieties, that he had so many 
generous friends who held him so dear ! But, poor 
man ! he had to die that the appreciation might 
express itself. Then the gentle words spoken over 
his cold form he could not hear. The flowers sent 
and strewn on his coffin had no fragrance for him. 
The love blossomed out too late. 

Many a woman gives out her life for Christ in 
lowly, self-denying ministries. She turns away 
from ease and comfort and toils for the poor. 
With her own fingers she makes garments for the 
widow and orphan. When she is dead there is 
great mourning. The poor rise up and call her 



KINDNESS THAT COMES TOO LATE, 159 

blessed. Those she has clad gather about her 
coffin and show the coats and garments she 
made for them while she was alive. Her pastor 
preaches her funeral sermon with wondrous ten- 
derness and eloquence. All very well. It is a 
sweet reward, a beautiful ending, for such a life. 
But would it not have been better if part at least 
of that kindness had been shown to her while her 
weary feet were walking on their long love-errands 
and her busy fingers were drawing the needle 
through seam after seam? 

A husband piled most elaborate floral offerings 
about his wife's coffin, built a magnificent monu- 
ment over her grave and spoke in glowing eulogy 
of her noble sacrifices. But it was w T hispered that 
he had not been the kindest of husbands to her 
while she lived. A daughter showed great sor- 
row at her mother's funeral and could not say 
enough in commendation of her, but it was known 
that she had thrust many a thorn into her pillow 
while she was living. 

Is it not a better thing to seek to make the liv- 
ing happy than to leave them to walk along dreary 
paths without sympathy, unhelped, neglected, per- 
haps wronged, and then flood their coffins with 
sunshine? Many a man goes down under the 



160 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

pressure of life's hardship and the weight of its 
burdens, never hearing the voice of human sym- 
pathy. What matters it to him, when the agony 
is over and he lies dead on the field, that friends 
come in throngs to lament his fall and to utter his 
praises ? May it not be that a tithe of the sympa- 
thy and appreciation wasted and unavailing now 
would have kept his heart bravely beating for 
many another year? 

"How much would I care for it could I know 
That when I am under the grass or snow, 
The raveled garment of life's brief day 
Folded and quietly laid away, 
The spirit let loose from mortal bars 
And somewhere away among the stars, — 
How much do you think it would matter then 
What praise was lavished upon me, when, 
Whatever might be its stint or store, 
It neither could help nor harm me more?" 

Do not, then, keep the alabaster boxes of your 
love and tenderness sealed up until your friends 
are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak 
approving, cheering words while their ears can 
hear them. The things you mean to say when 
they are gone say before they go. The flowers 
you mean to send for their coffins send to brighten 
and sweeten their homes before they leave them. 
If a sermon helps you, it will do the preacher good 



KINDNESS THAT COMES TOO LATE. 161 

to tell him of it. If the editor writes an article 
that you like, he can write a still better one next 
week if you send him a note of thanks. If a 
book you read is helpful, do you not owe it to the 
author to write him a word of acknowledgment? 
If you know a weary or neglected one or one 
overwrought, would it not be such work as God's 
angels love to do to seek to put a little brightness 
and cheer into his life, to manifest true sympathy 
with him, and to put into his trembling hand the 
cup filled with the wine of human love? 

I have always said — and I am sure I am speak- 
ing for thousands of weary, plodding toilers — that 
if my friends have vases laid away filled with the 
perfumes of sympathy and affection which they in- 
tend to break over my dead body, I would be glad 
if they would bring them out in some of my weary 
hours and open them, that I may be refreshed and 
cheered by them while I need them. I would 
rather have a coffin without a flower and a funeral 
without a spoken eulogy than a life without the 
sweetness of human tenderness and cheer. If we 
would fulfill our mission, we must anoint our friends 
beforehand for their burial. Post-mortem kind- 
nesses do not cheer the burdened spirit. Tears fall- 
ing on the icy brow make poor and tardy atonement 
11 



162 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

for coldness and neglect and cruel selfishness in 
long, struggling years. Appreciation when the 
heart is stilled has no inspiration for the spirit. 
Justice comes too late when it is only pronounced 
in the funeral eulogium. Flowers piled on the 
coffin cast no fragrance backward over the weary 
days. 



XVII. 

THE DUTY OF ENCOURAGEMENT. 

rflHERE are few things to which we need to 
-*' train ourselves more diligently and conscien- 
tiously than to the habit ot giving cheer and 
encouragement. 

To many people life is hard. It is full of 
struggles. It has more of shadow than of sun- 
shine. Its duties are stern and severe. Its bur- 
dens press heavily. We know not how many of 
those whom we meet have been worsted in the 
struggle of to-day or of yesterday and are cast down 
or almost in despair. We know not behind what 
smiling faces are sore hearts. We see not the se- 
cret sorrows that weigh like mountains upon many 
a gentle spirit. We do not understand with what 
difficulties the paths of many pilgrim feet are 
beset. There is not a heart without its bitterness. 
Work is hard. Burdens press heavily. Battles 
are fierce, and are often lost. Hopes fade like 

163 



164 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

summer roses, leaving disappointment and dead 
ashes. The constant and invariable gravitation 
of human hearts is toward discouragement and 
depression. 

An honest watching of our own inner experi- 
ences for a week will verify all this, and our 
personal experience is but a reflection of what is 
going on all about us. A few lives may be more 
sunny than ours, while in most the shadows are 
deeper, the struggles hotter and the path steeper 
and harder. 

While, then, there is so much that is dishearten- 
ing, it becomes our duty to watch for every oppor- 
tunity to put a little bit of brightness or better 
cheer into the lives of those we meet. It would 
seem to be clear that w T e should never needlessly 
utter a discouraging word. The guides caution 
travelers at certain points on the Alps not to 
speak even in a whisper, lest the reverberations of 
their tones should start an avalanche from its per- 
fect poise and send it crashing down. There are 
hearts so poised on the edge of despair that one 
dispiriting word will cast them down. It is, there- 
fore, disloyalty to humanity to speak a word whose 
influence tends to quench hope, to cool life's ardor 
or to cast a shadow over any sunny heart. 



THE DUTY OF ENCOURAGEMENT. 165 

And yet there are many who do not remember 
this. There are preachers who utter discouraging 
messages. If a commander, leading his army in 
battle, were to issue lugubrious proclamations, 
dwelling upon the difficulties and dangers of the 
hour, the power of the enemy and the uncertainty 
of the issue, he would ensure the defeat of his 
army and the failure of his cause. And yet there 
are men set to lead in the army of Christ w r ho 
ever dwell mournfully on the hardships and dis- 
couragements of the conflict, with scarcely a brave 
heroic, hopeful word. Should it not be the office 
of all who occupy responsible places as leaders, 
where their every word or tone has a mighty influ- 
ence over other lives, carefully and conscientiously 
to refrain from ever uttering one sentence which 
would check the enthusiasm of any hopeful heart 
or add to the fear and depression of one who is al- 
ready downcast ? There is enough in life's sorrows 
and trials to dishearten without this. Men and 
women need incitement, encouragement, inspiration. 
Many a church is kept from aggressive work and 
earnest progress by the discouraging utterances of 
a timid leader. One of the essential qualifications 
of leadership is large hopefulness. 

Then, in all life's relations, there are many peo- 



166 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

pie who are always saying disheartening things. 
Meet them when you may, speak to them on what- 
ever theme you choose, they will leave a depressing 
influence upon you. They take gloomy views of 
everything. They are always dominated by dis- 
couragements. They see the difficulties first of all 
in any enterprise or scheme. They regard the 
present time as the most unpropitious for the un- 
dertaking of any new work. This is the most cor- 
rupt age the world has ever seen ; men never were 
so depraved ; the Church never was so worldly, so 
shorn of power ; there never was so little true piety. 
Then touch upon their own personal affairs, and 
they grow still more gloomy. They air all their 
griefs. They have a volume of lamentations to 
pour into your ears. Ask their counsel in any 
matter of your own or speak to them of any plan 
of yours, and they will shake their heads and point 
out to you every unfavorable aspect of it. They 
seem to live to discourage others, to quench hope, 
to repress ardor and enthusiasm, to pour darkness 
into bright lives, and to spread demoralization and 
panic wherever they move. The chilling influ- 
ence of such lives it is impossible to estimate. To 
meet them in the morning is to have a day of de- 
pression. 



THE DUTY OF ENCOURAGEMENT. 167 

On the other hand, there are those who live to 
give cheer and encouragement. They may have 
burdens, or even sore griefs, of their own, but they 
hide them away deep in their own hearts, not car- 
rying them so as to cast their shadows on any other 
life. When you meet them, it is as when you go 
out on a June morning under a cloudless sky, with 
dewy fragrance breathing all around and bird- 
songs filling the air. There is a loving radiance 
in their countenances. Even if you do not know 
them personally, and merely meet them without 
salutation on the street, there is something in their 
expression that leaves a benediction on you whose 
holy influence follows you all day like the mem- 
ory of a lovely picture or the refrain of a sweet 
song. If you have only a greeting as you hurry 
by, it is so cordial, so hearty, so sincere, that its 
inspiration tingles all day in your veins. When 
you talk with them, you do not hear one gloomy 
word. They take hopeful views of everything. 
They always find some favorable light in which 
to view every discouraging event or circumstance. 
No ardor is quenched, no hope is dimmed, no 
enthusiasm is repressed in your heart, as you take 
counsel with them. 

They seek to remove difficulties, to open paths, 



168 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

to inspire fresh courage, to make you stronger, and 
to add to your determination to succeed. You 
always go out from a few minutes' talk with them 
with new impulses stirring in your breast, with 
lighter step, brighter face, deeper joy, and with the 
assurance of victory thrilling in your soul. 

The ministry of such lives is a most blessed one. 
What men need most in this world's struggle and 
strife is not usually direct help, but cheer. A child 
was seen at a high window in a burning building. 
A brave fireman started up a ladder to try to res- 
cue it. He had almost gained the window, when 
the terrible heat appeared too much for him. He 
seemed to stagger and was about to turn back, when 
some one in the throng below cried, " Cheer him !" 
A loud cheer went up, and in a moment more he 
had the imperiled child in his arm, snatched from 
an awful death. Many men have fainted and suc- 
cumbed in great struggles whom one word of cheer 
would have made strong to overcome. 

We should never, then, lose an opportunity to 
say an inspiring word. We do not know how 
much it is needed or how great and farreaching 
its consequences may be. One night long ago, 
during a terrible storm on the coast of England, 
a clergyman left his own cozy home, hurried away 



THE DUTY OF ENCOURAGEMENT. 169 

to the headland and lighted the beacon. Months 
afterward he learned that that light had saved a 
great ship with its freight of human life. We 
know not to what imperiled interests and hopes 
our one word or act of encouragement may carry 
rescue and safety. Nor do we know what desti- 
nies may be wrecked and lost by our failure to 
speak cheer. 

In the training and education of the young there 
is a great call for encouragement. Parents are too 
apt to criticise their children and find fault with 
them for the imperfect manner in which they do 
their work. In too many homes the prevalent 
temper is that of faultfinding and censure. Is it 
any wonder that the children sometimes grow dis- 
couraged and feel that there is no use in trying to 
do anything right? They never receive a word of 
commendation. Nothing that they do is approved. 
The defects and mistakes in their work are always 
pointed out, oftentimes impatiently, and no kindly 
notice is ever taken of any improvement or prog- 
ress made. Their little plans and ambitions are 
laughed at. Their day-dreams and childish fan- 
cies are ridiculed. No interest is taken in their 
studies. They are not merely left to struggle 
along without encouragement or appreciation, but 



170 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

every budding aspiration is met by the chilling 
frost of criticism. If we adults had to make head- 
way in life against such repressing influences as 
many children meet, we should soon faint by the 
way and give up in despair. 

There is a better way. "A kiss from my 
mother/' said Benjamin West, " made me a paint- 
er." Had it not been for her approving love and 
the cheer and encouragement which she gave to 
him when he showed her his first rude effort, he 
would never have gone on. A frown, a rebuke, 
a cold, indifferent criticism or a look or word of 
ridicule would have so discouraged him that he 
would never have tried again. No doubt many a 
grand destiny has been blighted in early youth by 
discouragement, by disapproval or by a sneer ; and, 
on the other hand, proper encouragement and ap- 
preciation woo out the coy and shrinking powers 
of genius and start men on grand careers. 

Wise parents and teachers understand this. 
They notice every improvement, every mark of 
progress, and speak approvingly of it. They com- 
mend whatever is well done. They never chide 
for faults or mistakes when the child has done its 
best. They point out the defects in such a way 
as not to give pain or to discourage, but rather to 



THE DUTY OF ENCOURAGEMENT 171 

stimulate to new effort. They never laugh at a 
child's visions or fancies or ridicule its plans, but 
regard them as the earliest germs of a beautiful 
life which they must try to woo out. They do not 
ridicule a child's answers or rebuke its questions. 
They treat every manifestation of its young life 
as tenderly as the skillful gardener treats his most 
delicate plants and flowers. They seek to make it 
summer about the budding life, so as never to stunt 
any nascent growth, but to warm and cheer and 
to call out every lovely possibility of strength and 
beauty. 

A naval officer who rose to high honor relates 
his first experience under fire. The conflict was 
very fierce, and at the beginning his terror was 
very great. He was almost utterly unmanned. 
The commander of the ship noticed his terror, and, 
coming to him in the gentlest manner, stood beside 
him for a few moments and told him of his expe- 
rience when first called into danger. He assured 
the young officer that he understood his feelings 
perfectly and sympathized with him. He then 
encouraged him with the further assurance that 
the feeling of dread would soon pass off and his 
courage would return. Had the commander ap- 
proached him with stern reproach and rebuke, he 



172 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

might have become utterly panic-stricken. As 
it was, his words of sympathy made him brave as 
a lion. 

Thus I read the duty of giving encouragement. 
It is the sunshine most lives need. Childhood, 
youth, struggling genius, fainting energy, wearied 
hope, tempted virtue, breaking hearts, — all are 
waiting for sympathy and cheer. Those who 
would do good must learn this secret— pastor, 
teacher, editor, parent. Disheartening words any- 
where are treasonable words. They cause fear, 
anxiety, panic, loss of courage, rout, disaster. 

There are discouragements enough in most lives 
already. Let us never add to life's burdens, but 
let us rather at every possible opportunity breathe 
cheer, fresh incitement, new courage. He that 
lives thus, even in the lowliest walk, will make 
brightness and song wherever he goes, and will 
have a choral entrance into joy at the end. 



XVIII. 

ON LOVING OTHERS. 

H^TEXT to loving God comes the duty of lov- 
•^^ ing others. Most people find it convenient 
in practical life to qualify the scope of the law. 
In the ancient Jewish interpretation enemies were 
left out; they w T ere to be hated. This made the 
commandment to love others easy of observance. 
Without any rabbinical gloss or tradition of the 
elders to justify us, while we preserve the text in 
its purity and read it in our Bibles with emphasis 
and commendation, it is seriously to be questioned 
whether we follow the commandment much more 
closely than did the religionists of our Lord's time. 
There are some people whom it is not hard to 
love, and to whom it is quite easy to be kindly af- 
fectioned. They are congenial and to our taste. 
We are drawn to them by their amiable qualities or 
charming manners, or their treatment of us is so 
kind and generous as to win our affection. It is 
easy to love such. 

173 



174 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

But there are others to whom we are not thus 
naturally attracted. They are not congenial — per- 
haps not amiable. They have unlovely or dis- 
agreeable traits. Certain faults mar the beauty of 
their characters or they treat us rudely and un- 
kindly. It is by no means easy for us to bear 
ourselves toward such with all of love's patience, 
gentleness, thoughtfulness and helpfulness. And 
yet it is this that is required of those who would 
walk in the footsteps of the Lord. Sinners love 
those who love them. Sinners do good to those 
who do good to them. Sinners lend to those of 
whom they hope to receive again. But we are to 
do more. We are to love our enemies. We are 
not to select from the mass about us a few to whom 
the law of love is to be applied. We are to have 
our special friends, just as Jesus had, to whom our 
hearts and lives may turn for that deep companion- 
ship which all pure and true souls crave ; but, like 
him also, we are to love all and show to all love's 
holiest offices. 

It is not enough to have the love in the heart ; 
we need to look also to its expression. In the bare, 
jagged trees that stand like naked skeletons in the 
early spring days there are thousands of intentions 
of leaf and fruit, but they are folded up and hid- 



ON LOVING OTHERS. 175 

den away in unopened buds. ".So, I believe, there 
are in many lives thoughts and purposes of love 
which do not reveal themselves. The love is in 
the heart, but it wants expression. Oftentimes the 
very reverse of the kindly thought is uttered. 
From many a lip the petulant word or the tone 
of bitterness is allowed to escape, while true 
love dwells deep within the heart- 
Most Christian people are better than they seem. 
There are excellent men whose goodness is rugged 
and cold like the bare granite rocks. It is strong, 
firm, true, upright, but lacks the finer graces of 
the Christliest piety. It is quite possible to love 
and not be kindly affectioned. There are homes in 
which there is love that would make any sacrifice, 
but in which hearts are starving for kindly expres- 
sion. There is a dearth of those tender words and 
thoughtful little acts which a true gentleness would 
suggest. There are fathers who love their children 
and would give their lives for them who are yet 
wanting in those kindly expressions which so en- 
dear the parental relation. There are friendships 
that are true enough, but which are not hallowed by 
those graceful attentions and those tokens of thought- 
fulness which cost so little and are worth so much. 
There are men whose hearts are full of benevolent 



176 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

dispositions toward the needy, and of sincere sym- 
pathy for those who suffer, in whose lives none of 
these benevolent thoughts or feelings of compassion 
take practical form. There are men with kindly 
natures whose manners are gruff and rude. There 
are others who boast of honest frankness in speech 
whose words are so harsh or ill-timed as to give 
immeasurable pain. Then how rare is that wise 
tact which seems always to know what one is in 
need of, and comes always at the very right mo- 
ment with its delicate attention, its unostentatious 
ministry, its quiet help ! 



"The ill-timed truth we might have kept, 

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung? 
The word we had not sense to say, 

Who knows how grandly it had rung?" 



There is great need, therefore, of thought with re- 
gard to the fitting expression of love. The kindly 
feeling must find some way to utter itself — a way, 
too, in keeping with the beauty of the sentiment. 
Many a lovely thought loses all its loveliness when 
clothed in speech or act. The benevolence of the 
heart must show itself in amiability of deport- 
ment and in deeds of mercy. Manner is as import- 
ant as matter. The gruff man can never impart 



ON LOVING OTHERS. 177 

much happiness to others. Kindness must be 
kindly expressed. 

The true test of Christian love is in life's closer 
relations. There is a great difference between lov- 
ing people we never saw, and never shall see, and 
those with whom we mingle continually in actual 
contact. There are some persons whose souls glow 
with love for the benighted heathen far away who 
fail utterly in loving their nearest neighbors or 
those who jostle against them every day in busi- 
ness and in society. No doubt it is easier to love 
some people at a distance. Distance lends enchant- 
ment to many lives, just as a far-away rugged 
landscape may seem charmingly picturesque. We 
cannot see their faults and blemishes. We are not 
required to endure their uncongenial or disagree- 
able qualities. We do not meet them in the rival- 
ries of business or chafings of social life. We 
see nothing of the petty meanness and selfish- 
ness that closer association would reveal in them. 
Our lives are not impinged upon at any point by 
theirs, and there can therefore be no friction. If 
w r e were brought into close association with them, 
our interest in them might be lessened. Many 
men who have been excellent friends while meet- 
ing occasionally and in favorable circumstances 
12 



178 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

have ceased to be friends when brought into close 
contact in the attritions of daily life. There are 
few characters that will bear the microscopic lens. 

But the test of true Christian love is that it does 
not fail even in the closest relations, in the most 
trying frictions of actual life, in which men so often 
appear at their worst. Charity beareth all things 
and never faileth. When hitherto undisclosed and 
unsuspected faults or blemishes appear in one we 
have esteemed, we are not to love him the less. 
Disagreeable qualities may appear upon closer 
acquaintance which will break the charm that 
distance lent and sorely test the genuineness of 
our love. There may be faults or eccentricities 
which painfully mar the beauty of men's charac- 
ters, rendering them uncongenial. Their actions 
toward us may give us apparent cause for with- 
holding from them that courtesy and kindness 
which it is our wont to manifest to all men. 

And yet none of these things modify the law 
of love or abridge its application. In all our in- 
tercourse with them our treatment of them is to 
be in the spirit of the sweetest charity. No rude- 
ness of theirs must provoke us to rudeness in re- 
turn. No matter how distasteful to our spirits 
their habits or manners may be, we are to treat 



ON LOVING OTHERS. 179 

them with unvarying courtesy. Even wrongs and 
injustice on their part toward us are to be answered 
only by that love that beareth all things and is not 
easily provoked, by the soft answer that turneth 
away wrath, and by the meekness that when re- 
viled revileth not again. 

The law of love, however, is not to be tortured 
into applications never intended. We are not 
required to take all sorts of people into intimate 
companionship or sacred friendship. There are 
many from whom we are commanded to separate 
ourselves. Even among the good our hearts are 
permitted to have choice of their affinities. Yet 
we are to cherish love toward all. In the face of 
the most repulsive qualities, even under the deep- 
est wrongs, we are still to maintain and exhibit 
love in all its tenderness, patience, thoughtfulness, 
compassion and helpfulness — not the love which 
calls evil good, but the love that desires for others 
the blessings which we seek for ourselves. 

To help in bearing with disagreeable people or 
those with unamiable qualities, there is nothing 
better than a sincere wish to do them good. There 
is a better side to every marred or distorted char- 
acter. Hidden away under the blemishes are the 
germs and possibilities of a noble and beautiful 



180 WEEK-BAY RELIGION. 

life. Christ sees under the most faulty exterior 
that which by his grace he can exalt into heavenly 
sainthood. We should look even upon the worst 
men in the same way, and hold it to be our errand 
to them to help to bring out in them the possi- 
ble beauty. There is a key somewhere to unlock 
any and every heart, and a hand that can bring 
betterment to every life. If we meet men and 
women, no matter how distorted their character, 
with a sincere desire to help and to bless them, we 
shall find it an easy task to bear with them and 
treat them lovingly. 

Longfellow says, "If we could read the secret 
history of our enemies, we should find in each 
man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm 
all hostility. " We always feel kindly and speak 
softly in the presence of suffering. There is some- 
thing in us that prompts us to extend sympathy 
and help to one that has sorrow. To remember 
that in every life there are hidden griefs would go 
far to help us to observe toward all the law of love. 

An artist used to say to his pupils, " The end 
of the day is the proof of the picture." He meant 
that the most favorable time to judge of the excel- 
lence of a painting is the twilight-hour, when there 
is not light enough to distinguish details. Then 



ON LOVING OTHERS. 181 

defects in execution cannot be seen, and the artist's 
thought glows in its richest beauty. In like man- 
ner, the close of the day of life is the truest time 
to look at human character. In the noon glare all 
men's faults appear. Jealousies, emulations and 
rivalries show us to each other in the heat of clash- 
ing, conflicting life in most unfavorable light. We 
are apt to put the worst construction upon each 
other's actions and motives. We see each other 
through the defective and distorting vision of our 
own selfishness. All the evil appears magnified, 
and many of the better things are unperceived or 
shown in false settings. But when the shadows 
of the evening of eternity begin to fall upon us, 
we see each other with the asperities softened 
and the blemishes covered by the veil of charity. 
When the fierce competitions are hushed we see 
men in truer light. We do justice then to their 
virtues and better qualities. Envy and prejudice 
in us no longer magnify the evil that is in them, 
while the good shines out in transfigured splendor. 
W^hen we sit beside a man's death-bed we have 
no harsh judgments to pronounce. Beauties ap- 
pear which we had never observed before, and im- 
perfections fade out in the softening, mellowing 
glow that streams from the gates of the eternal 



182 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

world. How kindly we feel toward him in that 
hour! Can we not learn to look at men always 
as we shall at the close of the day ? Then it will 
be easy to feel and to exhibit toward all that love 
that never faileth, that thinketh no evil, that 
hopeth all things. 



XIX. 

THOUGHTFULNESS AND TACT. 

" Evil is wrought by want of thought 
As well as want of heart." 

CI OME people have a wonderful way of always 
^ speaking a kind word or doing a kind act at 
the right time — -just when it is most needed and will 
do the greatest good. No matter when we meet 
them, they seem, as by some unfailing inspiration, 
to understand our mood and to have something 
precisely suited to it — a bit of sunshine for our 
gloom, a word of cheer for our disheartenment, a 
gentle but never offensive reminder of duty if we 
are growing remiss or neglectful, an impulse to 
activity if our zeal is flagging, or a word of gener- 
ous commendation and delicate praise if we are 
weary and overwrought. 

There is a wondrous power in fitness. A kind- 
ness that, standing apart from its occasion, seems 
utterly insignificant takes on importance and as- 

183 



184 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

siimes an inestimable value because of its oppor- 
tuneness. It multiplies one's usefulness a hun- 
dredfold, a thousandfold, to know how to speak 
the right word or do the right thing just at the 
right moment and in the right way. 

Many people with the very best motives and in- 
tentions and with truly large capacity for doing 
good almost utterly fail of usefulness and throw 
their lives away because they lack this gift of 
tact. They perform their kindest deeds in such an 
inappropriate way as to rob them of nearly all their 
power to comfort or cheer. They always come 
a few minutes too late to be helpful. They speak 
the wrong word, giving pain when they wanted to 
give pleasure. They are always making allusions 
to themes on which no word should be spoken. 
They are ever touching sensitive spots. When they 
enter a home of sorrow, drawn by the truest sympa- 
thy, they are almost sure to make tender hearts bleed 
the more by some want of fitness in word or act. 
They are continually hurting the feelings of their 
friends, oifending nearly every person they meet 
and leaving frowns and tears in their path. Every 
one gives them credit for honesty of intention, and 
yet their efforts to do good mostly come to naught 
or even result in harm. The sad part of it all is 



THOUGHTFULNESS AND TACT. 185 

that their motives are good and their hearts full of 
benevolent desires. Their lives are failures because 
they lack the proper touch and do not know in 
what manner to do the things they resolve to do. 

Others may not have one whit more sincere or 
earnest desire to be useful. Their interest in peo- 
ple may be no truer, their sympathy no deeper, 
their love no warmer. They may have less rather 
than more natural power to give help. Yet be- 
cause of their peculiar and gentle tact they scatter 
gladness all about them and are ever performing 
sweet ministries of good. Their suggestions of 
kindness do not come to them as after-thoughts 
when it is too late to render any help. They do 
not blunder into all sorts of cruelty when they try 
to alleviate sorrow. They come opportunely, like 
God's angels. Their thoughtfulness seems intu- 
itively to understand just what will be the best 
word to speak or the kindest and fittest thing 
to do. 

When they are guests in a home, they have a 
way of showing a grateful appreciation of the 
favors and attentions bestowed upon them, and yet 
in so delicate a way as never to appear to flatter. 
When they feel it necessary to remind another of 
some remissness in duty, they do it so gently as 



186 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

not to lose the friend, but to draw him all the 
closer. They possess the art of manifesting an in- 
terest — not feigned, but sincere — in each one they 
meet, and succeed in leaving a pleasant impression 
and a benign influence upon all. 

There are some who regard tact as insincerity or 
hypocrisy* They boast of their own honesty, which 
never tries to disguise a dislike for a person, which 
bluntly criticises another's faults even at the price 
of his friendship. They believe in truth in all its 
bare ruggedness, no matter how much pain it may 
give, and condemn all that thoughtful art which 
regards human feelings and tries to speak the truth 
in such a way that it may not wound and estrange. 
They love to quote the woe against those of whom 
all men speak well, and that other saying of our 
Lord's — that he had not come to send peace, but a 
sword. Their favorite prophet is Elijah, and they 
refer often to the biblical condemnation of certain 
who prophesied smooth things. They mistake 
bluntness for sincerity. In the name of candor 
they employ sarcasm or sharp and bitter personal- 
ities. When others are grieved or hurt or insulted, 
they answer, " I am a blunt man ; I say what I 
mean, and you must excuse me." Frankness is to 
be honored, but this is not frankness ; it is imper- 



THOUGHTFULNESS AND TACT. 187 

tinence, cruel unkindness, the outbreak of bad na- 
ture in him who speaks, which, instead of doing 
good, works only harm. 

A true appreciation of the story of the teachings 
of the gospel will reveal the fact that our Lord 
himself exercised the most beautiful and thought- 
ful tact in all his mingling among the people. He 
was utterly incapable of rudeness. He never need- 
lessly spoke a harsh word. He never gave needless 
pain to a sensitive heart. He was most considerate 
of human weakness. He was most gentle toward 
all human sorrow. He never suppressed the truth, 
but he uttered it always in love. Even the terrible 
woes he pronounced against unbelief and hypocrisy 
I do not believe were spoken in the tones of thun- 
der trembling with rage which men impart to their 
anathemas. I think we must read them in the light 
of his tears over the city of his love, which had re- 
jected him, pulsing and tremulous with divine and 
sorrowing tenderness. His whole life tells of most 
considerate thoughtfulness. He had a wondrous 
reverence for human life. Every scrap of human- 
ity was sacred and precious in his eyes. He bore 
himself always in the attitude of tenderest regard 
for every one. How could it be otherwise, since he 
saw in every one a lost being whom by love he 



188 WEEK-DAY BELIGION. 

might win and rescue, or whom by a harsh word he 
might drive for ever beyond hope? He never 
spoke brusquely or made truth cruel. He saw in 
every man and woman enough of sadness to soften 
the very tones of his speech and to produce feelings 
of ineffable tenderness in him. He moved about 
striving to impart to every one some comfort or 
help. 

If we can but realize, even in the feeblest 
way, the feeling of Christ toward men, our blunt- 
ness and rudeness will soon change to gentleness. 
And this is true tact. It is infinitely removed from 
cunning. Cunning is insincere. It flatters and 
practices all the arts of deception. It professes a 
friendship and interest it does not feel. It seeks 
only to promote its own ends. It is selfish at the 
core, and utterly wretched and debasing. 

True tact is sanctified common sense. It is 
Christian love doing its proper and legitimate work. 
It is that wisdom which our Lord commended so 
heartily to the disciples as they went out among 
enemies and into a hostile world. It is at the same 
time harmless as a dove. No one can read the New 
Testament thoughtfully without seeing how love 
moves everywhere as the queen of all the graces. 
Truth is everywhere clothed in the warm and radi- 






THOUGHTFULNESS AND TACT. 189 

ant beauty of charity. Positive, strong and 
mighty, it is ever gentle as the touch of a child's 
finger. Some one has said that whoever makes 
truth unpleasant commits high treason against 
virtue. The remark needs a qualification. There 
are unpleasant truths that must cause pain when 
faithfully spoken. Yet truth itself is always lovely, 
and we are not loyal to it when we present it in any 
way that will make it appear repulsive. 

Christian tact is wise and loving thoughtfulness. 
It is that charity which is wisely gentle to all, 
which beareth all things, which seeketh not her own, 
which thinketh no evil. It has an instinctive de- 
sire to avoid giving pain. It seeks to please all men 
for their good. It knows very well that the surest 
way not to do men good is to antagonize them and 
excite their opposition and enmity ; therefore, as far 
as possible, it avoids all direct attack upon the life 
and opinions of others. It shows respect for the 
views of those who differ in sentiment or belief. 
A wise writer has said, " When we would show 
any one that he is mistaken, our best course is to 
observe on what side he considers the subject — for 
his view of it is generally right on his side — and 
admit to him that he is right so far. He will be 
satisfied with this acknowledgment that he was 



190 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

not wrong in his judgment, though inadvertent in 
not looking at the whole of the case." How much 
wiser and more effective this method than that of 
violently assaulting the position of one who differs 
from us, as if we were infallible and he and his 
opinions were worthy only of our contempt ! We 
can accomplish by indirection what we could never 
do by direct methods. 

In no class of work is this wise tact so much 
needed as in trying to lead men to Christ. There 
is somewhere a key to every heart, and yet there 
are good and earnest men to whom no heart opens. 
They have zeal without knowledge. Sanctified 
tact shows its skill in a thousand little ways which 
no rules can mark out, but which win hearts and 
find acceptance for the living truth and for the 
wondrous love of Christ. I believe it will be seen 
in the end that many lives which might have been 
saved by the gentle methods which love teaches 
have drifted away from Christ and been lost 
through the unwisdom of workers. 

Tact has a wonderful power in smoothing out 
tangled affairs. A pastor, with it, will harmonize 
a church composed of most discordant elements, 
and prevent a thousand strifes and quarrels by 
saying the right word at the right time and by 



THOUGHTFTJLNESS AND TACT. 191 

quietly and wisely setting other influences to work 
to neutralize the discordant tendencies. A teacher 
possessed of this gift can control the most unruly 
pupils and disarm mischief of its power to annoy 
and disturb the peace. In the home it is a most 
indispensable oil. Quiet tact will always have the 
soft word ready to speak in time to turn away 
anger. It knows how to avoid unsafe ground. It 
can put all parties into a good humor when there 
is danger of difference or clashing. It is silent 
when silence is better than speech. 

Nothing else has so much to do with the success 
or failure of men in usefulness as the possession or 
non-possession of tact. A man with great gifts 
and learning accomplishes nothing, while another, 
with not one-half of his natural powers or acquire- 
ments, far outstrips him in practical life. The 
difference lies in tact — in knowing the art of doing 
things. We need more than brains and erudition. 
The talent of all which tells most effectively in life 
is that which teaches us how to use the power we 
have. One person will do more good without 
learning than another with his brain full of the 
lore of the ages. 

Tact is no doubt largely a natural endowment, 
but it is also partly an art, and can be cultivated. 



192 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

The awkward man who is always swinging himself 
against some one or treading down some tender 
flower may acquire something of the grace of easy 
carriage. The harsh, brusque man may get a softer 
heart, and with it a softer manner. The man who is 
always saying the wrong word and paining some 
one may at least learn to be silent on doubtful oc- 
casions. There is no better way to acquire this 
wonder-working tact than by becoming filled with 
the spirit of Christ. Warm love in the heart for 
all men, unselfish, thoughtful, kind, will always 
find some beautiful way to perform its beneficent 
ministries. 

A delicate kindness moves us more than the sub- 
limest exhibition of power. Gentleness is mightier 
than noise or force. The tiny flower growing high 
up on the cold, rugged mountain, amid ice and 
snow, impresses the beholder more than the great 
piles of granite that tower to the clouds. The soft 
shining of the sun can do more than the rude blast 
to make men unfasten their heavy garments and 
open their hearts to the influences of good. 



XX. 

MUTUAL FORBEARANCE. 

A MONG all Christian duties, there are few that 
-£"*- touch life at more points than the duty of 
mutual forbearance, and there are few that, in the 
observance or the breach, have more to do with the 
happiness or the unhappiness of life. We cannot 
live our lives solitarily. We are made to be social 
beings. It is in our intercourse with others that 
we find our sweetest pleasures and our purest 
earthly joys. Yet close by these springs of happi- 
ness are other fountains that do not yield sweet- 
ness. There often are briers on the branches from 
which we gather the most luscious fruits. Were 
human nature perfect, there could be nothing but 
most tender pleasure in the mutual comminglings 
of life. But we are all imperfect and full of in- 
firmities. There are qualities in each one of us 
that are not beautiful — many that are annoying to 
others. Self rules in greater or less measure in the 

13 193 



194 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

best of us. In our busy and excited lives we are 
continually liable to jostle against each other. Our 
individual interests conflict, or seem to conflict. 
The things we do in the earnest pressing of our 
own business and our own plans and efforts seem 
at times to interfere with the interests of others. 
In the heat of emulation and the warmth of self- 
interest we are apt to do things which injure 
others. 

Then, in our closer personal contact, in society and 
in business relations, we are constantly liable to 
give pain or offence. We sometimes speak quickly 
and give expression to thoughtless words which fall 
like sparks on other inflammable tempers. Even 
our nearest and truest friends do things that grieve 
us. Close commingling of imperfect lives always 
has its manifold little injustices, wrongs, oppressions, 
slights and grievances. 

Then we do not always see each other in clear 
and honest light. We are prone to have a bias 
toward self, and often misconstrue the bearing, 
words or acts of others. Many of us, too, are 
given to little petulances and expressions of ill- 
humor or bad temper which greatly lessen the 
probabilities of unbroken fellowship. 

Thus it comes about that no Christian grace is. 



MUTUAL FORBEARANCE. 195 

likely to be called into play more frequently than 
that of mutual forbearance. Without it there can 
really exist no close and lasting friendly relations 
in a society composed of imperfect beings. Even 
the most tender intimacies and the holiest associa- 
tions require the constant exercise of patience. If 
we resent every apparent injustice, demand the 
righting of every little wrong, and insist upon 
chafing and uttering our feelings at every infinites- 
imal grievance, and if all the other parties in the 
circle claim the same privilege, what miserable 
beings we shall all be, and how wretched life will 
become ! 

But there is a more excellent way. The spirit 
of love inculcated in the New Testament will, if 
permitted to reign in each heart and life, produce 
fellowship without a jar or break. 

We need to guard first of all against a critical 
spirit. It is very easy to find fault with people. 
It is possible, even with ordinary glasses, to see 
many things in one another that are not what 
they ought to be. Then some people carry micro- 
scopes fine enough to reveal a million animalculse 
in a drop of water, and with these they can find 
countless blemishes in the character and conduct 
even of the most saintly dwellers on the earth. 



196 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

There are some who are always watching for slights 
and grievances. They are suspicious of the motives 
and intentions of others. They are always imag- 
ining offences, even where none were most remotely 
intended. This habit is directly at variance with 
the law of love, which thinketh no evil. 

We turn to the Pattern. Does Christ look upon 
us sharply, critically, suspiciously? He sees every 
infirmity in us, but it is as though he did not see 
it. His love overlooks it. He throws a veil over 
our faults. He continues to pour his own love 
upon us in spite of all our blemishes and our ill- 
treatment of him. The law of Christian forbear- 
ance requires the same in us. We must not keep 
our selfish suspicions ever on the watch-tower or 
at the windows, looking out for neglects, discour- 
tesies, wrongs, or grievances of any kind. We 
must not be hasty to think evil of others. We 
had better be blind, not perceiving at all the seem- 
ing rudeness or insult. It, is well not to hear all 
that is said, or, if hear we must, to be as though 
we heard not. 

Many bitter quarrels have grown out of an im- 
agined slight, many out of an utter misconception, 
or perchance from the misrepresentation of some 
wretched gossipmonger. Had a few moments been 



MUTUAL FORBEARANCE. 197 

given to ascertain the truth, there had never been 
any occasion for ill-feeling. 

We should seek to know the motive also which 
prompts the apparent grievance. In many cases 
the cause of our grievance is utterly unintentional , 
chargeable to nothing worse than thoughtlessness — 
possibly meant even for kindness. It is never fair 
to judge men by every word they speak or every- 
thing they do in the excitement and amid the 
irritations of busy daily life. Many a gruff man 
carries a good heart and a sincere friendship under 
his coarse manner. The best does not always come 
to the surface. We should never, therefore, hastily 
imagine evil intention in others. Nor should we 
allow ourselves to be easily persuaded that our 
companions or friends meant to treat us unkindly. 
A disposition to look favorably upon the conduct 
of our fellow-men is a wonderful absorber of the 
frictions of life. 

Then there are always cases of real injustice. 
There are rudenesses and wrongs which we cannot 
regard as merely imaginary or as misconceptions. 
They proceed from bad temper or from jealousy 
or malice, and are very hard to bear. Kindness 
is repaid with unkindness. We find impatience 
and petulance in our best friends. There are 



198 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

countless things every day in our associations with 
others which tend to vex or irritate us. 

Here is room for the fullest exercise of that di- 
vinely-beautiful charity which covers a multitude 
of sins in others. We seek to make every possible 
excuse for the neglect or rudeness or wrong. Per- 
haps our friend is carrying some perplexing care 
or some great burden to-day. Something may be 
going wrong in his business or at his home. Or 
it may be his unstrung nerves that make him so 
thoughtless and inconsiderate. Or his bad health 
may be the cause. A large-hearted spirit will 
always seek to find some palliation at least for the 
apparent wrong. 

Another step in the school of forbearance is the 
lesson of keeping silent under provocation. One 
person alone can never make a quarrel: it takes 
two. A homely counsel to a newly-married couple 
was that they should never both be angry at the 
same time — that one should always remain calm 
and tranquil. There is a still diviner counsel 
which speaks of the soft answer which turneth 
away wrath. If we cannot have the soft answer 
always ready, we can at least learn not to answer 
at all. Our Lord met nearly all the insults he 
received with patient uncomplaining silence. He 



MUTUAL FORBEARANCE. 199 

was like a lamb dumb before the shearer. All 
the keen insults of the cruel throng wrung from 
him no word of resentment, no look of impatience. 
As the fragrant perfume but gives forth added 
sweetness when crushed, so cruelty, wrong and 
pain only made him the gentler and the love that 
always distinguished him the sweeter. 

It is a majestic power, this power of keeping 
silent. Great is the conqueror who leads armies 
to victories. Mighty is the strength that captures 
a city. But he is greater who can rule his own 
spirit. There are men who can command armies, 
but cannot command themselves. There are men 
who by their burning w T ords can sway vast multi- 
tudes who cannot keep silence under provocation 
or wrong. The highest mark of nobility is self- 
control. It is more kingly than regal crown and 
purple robe. 

" Not in the clamor of the crowded street, 
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, 
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat." 

There are times when silence is golden, when 
words mean defeat, and when victory can be gained 
only by answering not a word. Many of the pain- 
ful quarrels and much of the bitterness of what 



200 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

we call so often " incompatibility of temper" 
would never be known if we would learn to keep 
silence when others wrong us. We may choke 
back the angry word that flies to our lips. The 
insult unanswered will recoil upon itself and be 
its own destruction. 

There is also a wonderful opportunity here for 
the play of good nature. There are some people 
whose abounding humor always comes to their re- 
lief when they observe the gathering of a storm, 
and they will have a little story ready, or will sud- 
denly turn the conversation entirely away from the 
inflammable subject, or will make some bright or 
playful remark that will cause the whole trouble 
to blow off in a hearty laugh. It would not seem 
impossible for all to learn to bear insults or griev- 
ances in some of these ways, either in silence — not 
sullen, thunder-charged, but loving silence — or by 
returning the soft answer which will quench the 
flame of anger, or by that wise tact which drives 
out the petulant humor by the expulsive power of 
a new emotion. 

There are at least two motives which should be 
sufficient to lead us to cultivate this grace of 
forbearance. One is that no insult can do us 
harm unless we allow it to irritate us. If we 



MUTUAL FORBEARANCE. 201 

endure even the sorest words as Jesus endured his 
wrongs and revilings, they will not leave one trace 
of injury upon us. They can harm us only when 
we allow ourselves to become impatient or angry. 
We can get the victory over them, utterly disarm 
them of power to do us injury, by holding our- 
selves superior to them. The feeling of resent- 
ment will change to pity when we remember that 
not he who is wronged, but he who does the wrong, 
is the one who suffers. Every injustice or griev- 
ance reacts and leaves a stain and a w r ound. All 
the cruelties and persecutions that human hate 
could inflict would not leave one trace of real 
harm upon us, but every feeling of resentment 
admitted into our hearts, every angry word uttered, 
will leave a stain. Forbearance thus becomes a 
perfect shield which protects us from all the cruel- 
ties and wrongs of life. 

The other motive is drawn from our relation 
to God. We sin against him continually, and his 
mercy never fails. His love bears with all our 
neglect, forgetfulness, ingratitude and disobedience, 
and never grows impatient with us. We live only 
by his forbearance. The wrongs he endures from 
us are infinite in comparison with the trivial griev- 
ances we must endure from our fellow-men. When 



202 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

we think of this, can we grow impatient of the 
little irritations of daily fellowship? We are 
taught to pray every day, " Forgive us our debts 
as we forgive our debtors." How can we pray this 
petition sincerely and continue to be exacting, re- 
sentful, revengeful, or even to be greatly pained 
by the unkind treatment of others? 

The Koran says that two angels guard every man 
on the earth, one w r atching on either side of him ; and 
when at night he sleeps, they fly up to heaven with 
a written report of all his words and actions dur- 
ing the day. Every good thing he has done is 
recorded at once and repeated ten times, lest some 
item may be lost or omitted from the account. 
But when they come to a sinful thing, the angel 
on the right says to the other, " Forbear to record 
that for seven hours ; perad venture, as he wakes and 
thinks in the quiet hours, he may be sorry for it, 
and repent and pray and obtain forgiveness." This 
is a true picture of the way in which God regards 
our lives. He is slow to see our sins or to write 
them down against us. He delights in mercy. 
We are to repeat in our lives as his children some- 
thing at least of his patience. The song of for- 
giveness and forbearance which he sings into our 
hearts we are to echo forth again. 



XXI. 

MANLY MEN. 

"Let my early dreams come true 
With the good I fain would do; 
Clothe with life my weak intent, 
Let me be the thing I meant." 

/"CHRISTIAN life is more than a tender senti- 
^^ ment. Christian character is more than gen- 
tleness, patience, meekness, humility, kindness. 
There are some men who have these qualities 
who lack the more robust characteristics of man- 
hood. They are weak, nerveless, spiritless. They 
are wanting in courage, force, energy and that in- 
definable quality called grit. Their gentleness is 
the gentleness of weakness. They are not manly 
men. Their virtues are of the passive kind, and 
they lack those active, positive traits that give men 
power and make them strong to stand and resist- 
less when they move. Such persons have no 
strength of conviction. Holding their opinions 
lightly, their grasp of them is easily relaxed. They 

203 



204 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

are remarkable for their forbearance and meekness, 
thus illustrating one phase of true Christly charac- 
ter, but they serve only as moral buffers in society 
to deaden the force of the concussion produced by 
other men's passions. They generate no motion, 
they kindle no enthusiasm, they inspire no courage, 
they make no aggression against the world's hosts 
of evil. They are good men. They have the pa- 
tience of Job, the meekness of Moses, the amia- 
bility of John, but they want the boldness of 
Peter, the enthusiasm of Paul and the moral hero- 
ism of Luther superadded to their passive virtues 
to make them truly strong men. 

There is another class of defects sometimes found 
in men of very gentle spirit. They possess many 
of those qualities of disposition that are most high- 
ly commended in the Scriptures. They are not 
easily provoked. They speak the soft answer that 
turneth away wrath. They endure well the rough 
experiences of life. They are gentle to all men 
and full of kindness, and yet they are wanting in 
the quality of perfect truthfulness. They are neither 
false nor dishonest in great matters, but in countless 
minor matters they are characterized by a disregard 
of that exact truthfulness which the religion of 
Christ requires. They are not careful to keep 



MANLY MEN 205 

their engagements. They are ready to promise 
any favor asked of them — they have not the courage 
to say " No I" to a request — but they frequently fail 
to fulfill what they so readily promise. They are 
unpunctual men, late at meetings, keeping others 
waiting at appointments, and often failing alto- 
gether to appear after the most positive engage- 
ment to attend. We can readily forgive the cruelty 
of that facetious editor who recently wrote a tearful 
" In Memoriam " of one of these unpunctual men, 
speaking of him as the " late Mr. Blank." 

These late people are frequently careless, too, 
about paying little debts. In charity, I think, 
"careless" is the proper word, for they do not 
intend to defraud any one, but have permitted 
themselves to grow into a loose habit of doing 
business. They make little purchases or borrow 
little sums of money from friends, faithfully prom- 
ising to pay or return the amount in a day or two, 
but neglecting to do so, until by and by the matter 
fades altogether from their memory. They bor- 
row books also, if they chance to be of a literary 
turn of mind, and other articles of various kinds, 
pledging themselves to return the same in a very 
little time ; and many an empty place in a library 
and many a missing article in a household pro- 



206 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

claim either a great many bad memories or a pain- 
ful want of conscientiousness in borrowers. 

There is still another class of blemishes for 
which I can find no more gentle designation than 
the word meannesses. No other faults detract more 
from the nobleness of manhood, and yet it must be 
confessed with shame that none are more common. 
A man seems to possess an excellent character as 
beheld from a little distance. He has many ele- 
ments of power, traits of usefulness, perhaps even 
of greatness; but when drawn close to him into 
intimate personal relations, you discover evidences 
of meanness which you had not suspected before. 
As a friend he is disingenuous. Through all the 
guise of good profession the marks of selfishness 
and self-seeking appear. He uses his friends to 
further his own personal interests, and cares not 
that they suffer loss provided he himself is ben- 
efited. He is not loyal to those to whom he pro- 
fesses such unfaltering devotion, but speaks freely in 
whispers to others of their faults, disclosing many 
a matter entrusted to him or learned by him in the 
sacredness of close friendship. If he wishes any- 
thing accomplished that involves risk of reputa- 
tion, he puts some other one forward to do the un- 
pleasant work, to bear the odium or take the sneers 



MANLY MEN 207 

and reproach, while he quietly steps in to reap the 
advantage. 

In business he is close and hard. He never pays 
a debt cheerfully, without protest or question. He 
treats every creditor as if he were an enemy or a 
conspirator and as if his bills were fraudulent or 
unjust. He takes every advantage in a bargain. 
He higgles for the lowest penny when he is to pay, 
and the highest when he is making the sale. He 
counts the fractions of cents in his own favor. To 
his employes he pays the minimum of wages, 
while he extorts from them the maximum of work. 
He is suspicious of the honesty of every one, quot- 
ing often the old aphorism of meanness: "Till 
you know that a man is honest, treat him as a 
rogue." His meanness creeps out, too, in many 
very small things. He always pays out the most 
ragged bill he has or the smooth or notched coin, 
reserving the bright, clean notes and the new coins 
for himself. He accepts compliments, dinners and 
other favors and kindnesses, but never returns 
them. He borrows his neighbor's newspaper to 
save the expense of buying one for himself. But 
to no one is he so mean as to the Lord and to his 
church. When the contribution-box is passed, he 
selects the smallest bit of money in his pocket to 



208 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

give. When subscriptions are asked, he puts down 
the least amount that will be received, and then, if 
possible, will in the end evade payment altogether. 
He is a small-souled, grasping, narrow-spirited 
man. He lives only for self, and even his selfish- 
ness overreaches itself, for in the eyes of all man- 
kind nothing is more despicable than meanness, and 
nothing brings back poorer and more beggarly 
returns. 

All of these are unmanly qualities. It does not 
meet the case to say that they are minor faults, that 
we ought not to be hypercritical, that we should 
have that large charity which covers even multi- 
tudes of blemishes. When right and wrong are 
involved, there are no little things. A star seems 
a mere speck to our poor vision, but to God's eye 
it is a vast burning sun. The evils that we deem 
so minute, in Heaven's sight are infinite. There is 
only one pattern on which we must fashion our 
lives, and in that there is no fault. The word of 
God in its divine requirements makes no provision 
for blemishes, though they be the smallest. 

Then a little thought will show any one that 
even the most trivial of these things do not only 
mar the beauty of the character as seen by others, 
but also destroy the influence of the person in the 



MANLY MEN 209 

community. A man who becomes known as un- 
faithful to his promises and appointments, or as 
careless in meeting his obligations, in paying his 
debts and in returning what he has borrowed, soon 
wins for himself a very unenviable reputation. 
Such a man has no power for good. He may 
preach the gospel or exhort in meetings or teach in 
the Sabbath-school, but his words avail nothing, 
because his character is worm-eaten and he has lost 
the confidence and respect of his neighbors. All 
his goodness and well-meaning go for nothing 
while even in the smallest matters he is known 
to be untruthful and dishonest, to evade paying 
his debts, or even to be careless of his promises 
and pledges. 

Who has not known the usefulness of many an 
otherwise excellent man utterly destroyed by a 
negligent disregard of his obligations and engage- 
ments ? Who has any true respect for a mean 
man ? Meanness defeats its own object and wins 
contempt. Even as a matter of worldly policy it 
is fatal unwisdom. Nothing wins in the marts like 
generosity. And in the matter of manly character 
it is a most despicable blemish. The world will 
forget and forgive almost anything sooner than 
meanness. One exhibition of such a spirit in a 

14 



210 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Christian does incalculable harm to his influence, 
and habitual meanness in a little while utterly 
wastes his power for usefulness. How long can 
a sneaking, evasive, gossipy person have true 
friends or retain the respect of those who know 
him? 

We may call these trivial blemishes, and it may 
seem hard that, while a man is good in the staple 
of his character, he should be made to suffer for 
such minor faults — mere negligence of habit, may- 
hap, or mere accidents of education — but the fact 
stares us in the face, and must be accepted as inex- 
orable. Even the ethics of the world condemns 
these things as unmanly, and the character that 
suffers itself to be tarnished by them must pay the 
penalty in diminished or utterly destroyed influence 
for good. 

It is worth our while to study closely the cha- 
racter of true manliness as we have its type and 
pattern in the life of our Lord. We soon learn 
that w T hile in him love blossomed out in all that is 
rich and beautiful in human tenderness and gentle- 
ness, it did not leave him weak and strengthless. 
Never was any other man so full of compassion, so 
pitiful toward those who had wandered, so patient 
in bearing wrong or so forgiving toward his en- 



MANLY MEN 211 

emies. But you seek in vain in all his life for the 
faintest trace of moral feebleness. To him sin in 
any form was unutterably abhorrent. Truth shone 
in every lineament of his soul. He was the em- 
bodiment of courage. All the active virtues, as 
well as the passive, were exhibited in him. He 
was not merely a patient sufferer ; he set a-going in 
the world the mightiest forces of divinity — forces 
whose resistless momentum has penetrated all the 
world's life, and which even at the distance of 
nineteen centuries have lost none of their energy 
or vitality. He was not a weak man swept along 
by the strong currents of the world's passions to an 
unavoidable destiny. So he sometimes appears to 
superficial observation, but so he was not. Every 
step was voluntary. His was the sublime march 
of a king. He had all power and was always ac- 
tive, never passive even in what seem the most 
helpless hours of his life. He laid down his life ; 
he had power to lay it down. Even in dying he 
was active, voluntarily giving up his life. 

We cannot study enough this sometimes neg- 
lected phase of Christ's life — the force and pos- 
itiveness of his character. Patient to endure, there 
was yet power enough in his gentlest word to make 
it a living influence for uncounted centuries. His 



212 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

most passive moments were marked by exhibitions 
of omnipotence. Submitting to the arresting band, 
he yet put forth his hand to work a miracle of 
healing. On his cross he opened heaven's gates 
to a penitent soul. 

Then he was in every way the manliest of men — 
large-hearted, noble-spirited, generous to the very 
uttermost of self-sacrifice. No microscopic eye can 
find in all his life a trace of selfishness or one 
token of meanness. 

Such is the Pattern, and a Christian man must be 
strong as well as tender. The active virtues must 
be cultivated as well as the passive. Meekness 
must not be weakness. The soft speech must not 
be the timid utterance of moral feebleness. Like 
the mighty engine which can polish a needle or cut 
a bar of iron, a Christian man must have a touch 
as gentle as an infant's and yet possess the courage 
of a hero to smite evil and to do the Lord's work. 
With the charity that beareth all things and en- 
dureth all things he must have the force of charac- 
ter which will make his influence a mighty positive 
power for good. Truth must be wrought into the 
very grain and fibre of his manhood. His word 
must be pure as gold. His lightest promises must 
be as sacredly kept as his most solemn engagements. 



MANLY MEN 213 

He must be a large-hearted, generous man, unsel- 
fish, noble-spirited, above all suspicion of meanness. 
He must be scrupulously exact in all his dealings, 
promptly returning what he has borrowed, paying 
his debts the very day they are due, never seeking to 
evade them, never forgetting them, nor postponing 
payment till the very latest time. He must not be 
a hard man, close, oppressive, domineering, des- 
potic. In a word, he must combine unflinching 
integrity, unvarying promptness and punctuality 
and conscientious truthfulness with generosity and 
liberality. 

Such a man will grow into a marvelous power in 
the community in which he lives. People will be- 
lieve in his religion because he lives it. No one 
will sneer when he exhorts others to be honest, 
upright and true, prompt and punctual, and faithful 
to utmost scrupulousness to their engagements. 
His life is one unflawed crystal. He is a manly 
man. Even the enemies of religion respect him. 
His simplest words are weighty. His whole influ- 
ence is for truth and nobleness. His daily life is a 
sermon. God is honored and the world is blessed 
by his living. 



XXII. 

BOOKS AND READING. 

" The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn 
nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world — that I 
may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven." 

Eichter. 

f~T is said that it would require hundreds of years 
-*- to read the titles alone of all the books in the 
world's libraries. Even of those that issue each 
year from the press newly written, one person can 
read but a very meagre percentage. It is therefore 
a physical impossibility to read all the books which 
the art of printing has put within our reach. Even 
if our whole time were to be devoted to reading, 
we could in our brief years peruse but a very small 
portion of them. Then it must be considered that 
in these busy days, when active duties press so im- 
periously, the most of us can devote but a few 
hours each day at the best to reading, and very 
many find, not hours, but minutes only, for this 

214 



BOOKS AND READING. 215 

purpose. There are hosts of busy people who 
cannot read more than a score of books in a year. 

It is settled, therefore, for us all, that we must 
be content to leave the great mass of printed books 
unread. Even those who are favored with most 
leisure cannot read one in a thousand or ten thou- 
sand of the books that offer themselves. And those 
whose hands are full of activities can scarcely touch 
the great mountain of printed matter that looms up 
invitingly before them. 

The important question, then, is, On what prin- 
ciple should we select out of this great wilderness 
of literature the books we shall read? If I can 
read but a dozen volumes this year, how am I to 
determine what volumes of the thousands they 
shall be? 

For all books are not alike good. There are 
books that are not worth reading at all. Then, of 
those that are good, the value is relative. The 
simplest wisdom teaches that we should choose 
those which will repay us most richly. Let us 
look at some principles relating to this subject 
which are worthy of consideration. 

There are books that are tainted with impurity. 
Of course all such are to be excluded from our 
catalogue. We can no more afford to read a vile 



216 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

book, however daintily and delicately the vileness 
may be draped, than we can afford to admit an im- 
pure companionship into our lives. Perhaps the 
most of us are not sufficiently careful in this matter. 
The country is flooded with publications, oftentimes 
attractively prepared, elaborately illustrated, their 
impurity concealed under harmless titles, but in 
which lurks the fatal poison of moral death. 
Many good people are beguiled into reading books 
or papers of this class as a recreation. When we 
remember that everything we read leaves its im- 
pression upon our inner life and makes its enduring 
mark upon our character, the importance of this sub- 
ject appears. The geologist will take you to some 
old rock-formation, and will show you, on what was 
once the shore of an ancient sea, the traces left 
by the waves, the tracks of the bird that walked 
along in the sand one day, and the print of the leaf 
that fell and lay there. The shore hardened into 
rock, and the rock holds every trace through all 
these centuries. So it is in character-building. 
Everything that we take into our life leaves its 
permanent impression. 

Then, when we consider the subject from a Chris- 
tian view-point, it becomes even more important. 
Our work here is spiritual culture. We are to 



BOOKS AND READING. 217 

keep most sedulous watch over our hearts that 
nothing shall tarnish their purity. We are to 
admit into our minds nothing that may dim our 
spiritual vision or break in any degree the conti- 
nuity of our communion with God ; and it is well 
known that any corrupt thing, admitted even for 
a moment into our thoughts, not only stains our 
mind, but leaves a memory that may draw a trail 
of stain after it for ever. It is related of a cel- 
ebrated painter that he could not look upon a dis- 
gusting object when engaged in his work without 
seeing the effect of it in the productions of his 
brush and pencil afterward. A distinguished 
clergyman, in speaking of the effect upon the 
mind of reading certain classes of literature, gives 
a bit of his own experience. He was beguiled into 
reading a number of the works of a popular writer 
which were not supposed to have any irreligion in 
them, but he could not preach with any comfort 
for six months afterward. If we would keep the 
tender joy of our heart-experiences unbroken, we 
must hold the most rigid watch over our reading, 
conscientiously excluding not only all that is ob- 
viously impure, but all in which lurks even a 
suggestion of wrong. 

Then there are books that are free from immoral 



218 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

taint that we must exclude also unless we want to 
throw away our time and waste our opportunities 
for improvement. They are unobjectionable on 
moral grounds, but are vapid, frivolous, empty. 
There are many popular novels that have even a 
sort of religious odor which yet teach nothing, give 
no upward impulse, furnish no food for thought, 
add no additional fact to our store of knowledge, 
leave no touch of beauty. There is nothing in 
them. There is a great demand in these days for 
this easy kind of reading. It agrees well with 
the indolent disposition of many who want noth- 
ing that requires close application or vigorous 
thinking or patient, earnest mental toil. It is 
not directly harmful. It could not be indicted 
for bad moral quality or influence. It leaves no 
debris of vile rubbish behind. It may be ortho- 
dox, full of sentimental talk about religion and 
of pious moralizing on sundry duties. It starts 
no impure suggestion. It teaches no false doc- 
trine or wrong principle. It debauches no con- 
science. It flows over our souls like soft senti- 
mental music. 

And yet it is decidedly evil in its effects upon 
mind and heart. It imparts no vigor. It minis- 
ters to none of the functions of life. Then it 



BOOKS AND READING. 219 

vitiates the appetite, enervates the mind and de- 
stroys all taste for anything solid and substantial 
in literature. It so enfeebles the powers of atten- 
tion, thought, memory and all the intellectual 
machinery that there is no ability left to grapple 
with really important subjects. Next to the great 
evil produced by impure and tainted literature 
comes the debilitating influence of the enormous 
flood of trashy, worthless publications filling the 
country. 

If we can read in our brief, busy years but a 
very limited number of books of any kind, should 
not those few be the very best, richest, most sub- 
stantial and useful that we can find in the whole 
range of literature? If one hundred books lie 
before me and I have time to read but one of 
them, if I am wise will I not select that one 
which will bring to me the largest amount of in- 
formation, which will start in my mind the grandest 
thoughts, the noblest impulses, the brightest con- 
ceptions, the purest emotions, or which sets before 
me the truest ideals of manly virtue and heroic 
character ? 

But how do most persons read ? On what prin- 
ciple do they decide what to read or what not to 
read ? Is there one in a hundred who ever gives 



220 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

a serious thought to the question or makes any- 
intelligent choice whatever? With many it is 
a the last novel," utterly regardless of what it is. 
With others it is anything that is talked about 
or extensively advertised. We live in a time 
when the trivial is glorified and magnified and 
held up in the blaze of sensation, so as to attract 
the gaze of the multitude and sell. That is all 
many books are made for — to sell. They are writ- 
ten for money, they are set up in type, stereotyped, 
printed, illustrated, bound, ornamented, titled, sim- 
ply for money. There is no soul in them. There 
was no high motive, no thought all along their his- 
tory of doing good to any one, of starting a new 
impulse, of adding to the fund of the world's joy 
or comfort or knowledge. They were wrought out 
of mercenary brains. They were made to sell, and 
to sell they must appeal to the desire for sensation, 
excitement, romance, or diversion. So it comes to 
pass that the country is flooded with utterly worth- 
less publications, whilst really good and valuable 
books are left unsold and unread. The multitude 
goes into ecstasies over ephemeral tales, weekly lit- 
erary papers, new, sentimental poems, magazines, 
and a thousand trivial works that please or excite 
for a day and are then old and forgotten in the 



BOOKS AND READING. 221 

intense and thrilling plot of the story that is new- 
est and latest to-morrow, whilst books every way 
admirable are passed by unnoticed. 

Hence, while everybody reads, few read the 
grand masters. Modern culture knows all about 
the auroral literature that flashes up and dies 
out again, but knows nothing of history or true 
poetry or really great fiction. Many people who 
have not the courage to confess ignorance of the 
last novel regard it as no shame to be utterly 
ignorant of the majestic old classics. In the floods 
of ephemeral literature the great books are buried 
away. It is pretty safe to say that not one in a 
hundred now reads Milton's Paradise Lost, and 
that not one in a thousand has ever read a trans- 
lation of Homer's Iliad. Every one goes into 
raptures over some sentimental song-writer of a 
day, but how many read even the great master- 
pieces of Shakespeare ? The Pilgrim's Progress is 
only known from being referred to so often, while 
the thousand summer volumes on sentimental re- 
ligion are eagerly devoured by pious people. 

It is time for a revolution on this subject. We 
must gain courage to remain ignorant of the great 
mass of books in the annual Nile-overflow of the 
printing-press. We must read the great masters 



222 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

in poetry, in science, in history, in religion, in fic- 
tion, and we must have a system by which our 
reading shall be rigidly controlled and directed, 
or we shall spend all our life and not be profited. 
Aimless rambling from book to book accomplishes 
little. We should select conscientiously, wisely, 
systematically. 

Having stricken from the catalogue everything 
that bears any immoral taint and whatever is 
merely ephemeral and trivial, there remains a 
grand residuum of truly great works, some old, 
some new, from which we must again select accord- 
ing to our individual taste, occupation, leisure, 
attainments and opportunities. We should read 
as a staple works that require close attention, 
thought, study and research, indulging in lighter 
classes only for mental relaxation. The old classic 
poets should be not only read, but deeply studied. 
Of history one should have at least a correct gen- 
eral knowledge. One cannot aiford to be ignorant 
of the sciences in these days of discovery. 

All books that set before us grand ideals of 
character are in some sense great. The ancients 
w T ere wont to place the statues of their distin- 
guished ancestors about their homes that their 
children might, by contemplating them, be stim- 



BOOKS AND READING. 223 

ulated to emulate their noble qualities. Great lives 
embalmed in printed volumes have a wondrous 
power to kindle the hearts of the young, for " a 
good book holds, as in a vial, the purest efficacy 
and extraction of the living intellect that bred it." 
There are great books enough to occupy us during 
all our short and busy years ; and if we are wise, 
we will resolutely avoid all but the richest and 
the best. As one has written, " We need to be 
reminded every day how many are the books of 
inimitable glory which, with all our eagerness after 
reading, we have never taken in our hands. It 
will astonish most of us to find how much of our 
industry is given to the books which leave no 
mark — how often we rake in the litter of the 
printing-press while a crown of gold and rubies 
is offered us in vain." 



XXIII. 

PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

T 1 1HE desire to be beautiful is natural and right. 
- L Holiness is beauty. The human form, when 
it first came from the Creator's hands, was perfect 
in loveliness. It was the embodiment of all that 
is noble, graceful, winning, impressive and charm- 
ing. We cannot doubt that God made a perfect 
body as the temple and home of a perfect soul that 
bore his own image. He who made all things 
beautiful certainly gave the highest loveliness to 
his masterpiece. 

But sin has marred the grace of the human 
form. Perfect physical beauty is not found in 
any one. There are fragments of the shattered 
splendor found — one feature in one, and another in 
another — by which we have hints of what the orig- 
inal was. The artists have tried to reproduce the 
first perfect beauty by gathering from many forms 
these fragments of loveliness and combining them 

224 



PERSONAL BEAUTY. 225 

all in one, which they call the ideal human beauty. 
They point to certain remains of ancient Greek 
sculpture as presenting, as nearly as human skill 
can do it, the restored beauty of creation. 

How far art may have succeeded in achieving its 
aim we know not. We cannot tell whether the 
Apollo Belvidere is or is not a restored Adam, 
or whether the Venus de Medici fairly represents 
the beauty of Eve. This is not our inquiry at 
this time. But we know that all Christian life is 
a growth toward perfect beauty. Christ came to 
restore ruined nature to its lost loveliness. This 
is true not only of the spiritual life, but also of 
the physical form. We are to wear the spotless 
image of our Lord in the future world. Perhaps 
Ave do not always realize the full meaning of this 
truth as it is declared in the Scriptures. It is 
explicitly and positively taught that Christ will 
change our vile bodies and fashion them like unto 
his own glorified body. This corruptible must 
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 
immortality. This is not the place for speculations 
as to the nature or material of the resurrection 
body, and it may only be said further that the 
plain, clear teachings of inspiration are that all 
blemishes and infirmities are to be left in the 

15 



226 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

grave. There will be no deformities in the new 
body. There will be no sin and no disease. All 
the work of sin is to be undone by redemption, 
and hence the body will be restored to its original 
perfectness. Thus the development of Christian 
life is toward perfect beauty, and the desire to be 
beautiful in form and feature, unless perverted, is a 
proper and holy desire. 

What, then, is true personal beauty? Answer- 
ing the question from a Christian point of view, 
we know that it does not consist in mere physical 
charms, in proportion, grace, figure, complexion, 
but in the life, the soul that looks out through 
these windows. 

"What is beauty? Not the show 
Of graceful limbs and features. No ; 

These are but flowers 

That have their dated hours 
To breathe their momentary sweets, then go. 

; Tis the stainless soul within 

That outshines the fairest skin." 

It is a well-known and universally-accepted 
principle that the soul gives to the body its form, 
and that the life writes its whole history in the 
features of the face. A beautiful character will 
transfigure the countenance. You look into it, 
and you read refinement, purity, delicacy, peace, 



PERSONAL BEAUTY. 227 

love. In like manner, an evil character hangs 
its curtains at all the windows, and you see at a 
glance selfishness, cunning, lust, deceit, falsehood, 
malignity, coarseness, unrest. So all spiritual cul- 
ture is toward beauty, for as the heart becomes 
filled with the holy graces of the Spirit they make 
themselves manifest in the transforming of the 
features. 

It was sin that shattered the original splendor 
of the human form. All blemishes, disfigure- 
ments and deformities have been produced by vio- 
lations of divine laws, by over-indulgence of pas- 
sions and appetites, and by diseases and infirmities 
resulting therefrom. Hence all true searching for 
beauty must be along the path on which it was 
lost. Those who would recover and retain loveli- 
ness of form and feature must seek to have the 
divine laws written upon their hearts and assim- 
ilated in their lives. 

The observance of the physical laws of our be- 
ing is of vital importance. These are inexorable. 
There is no forgiveness for their violation. A large 
part of the misery and wretchedness of this world 
comes from the disregard of these precepts. The 
beauty as well as the comfort and happiness of men 
and women would be immeasurably advanced if all 



228 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

could be brought to obey, strictly and invariably, 
the simple laws of physical life. 

Then still more essential is the observance of 
moral and spiritual precepts. The soul informs its 
own dwelling. There is no beauty in the idiot's 
face. The most perfect features have scant loveli- 
ness when there is a vacant mind behind them. 
Selfishness wipes out the soft and tender lines and 
leaves the cheeks faded and cold. Meanness de- 
grades the majesty of the countenance and takes 
the kingly glory from the eyes. Greed petrifies the 
features. Anger, nourished and cherished, writes 
itself upon the visage. Impurity of soul and life 
robs the expression of the bloom of innocence and 
hangs its telltale marks all about the face. It is 
utterly vain to hope to be beautiful with bad tem- 
pers, groveling tastes or base passions ruling in the 
heart. The face may still wreathe itself with smiles. 
The greatest pains may still be taken to cherish and 
retain the bloom and freshness of innocence. But 
it is in vain. A discrowned soul cannot long pre- 
serve in its palace the splendors and glories of its 
days of power and majesty. The inner life writes 
every line of its history on the features, where the 
practiced eye can read its every word. 

So, also, beauty of soul exhibits itself in the ex- 



PERSONAL BEAUTY. 229 

pression. Kindness wreathes the face with gen- 
tleness. Holy thoughts refine the countenance. 
Grand purposes, noble resolves, high aspirations, 
clothe the form and features with dignity and 
power. Sincerity and truth transfigure even the 
homeliest looks. 

Those who would cultivate personal beauty must 
look to their inner life. As the dweller's taste and 
refinement always manifest themselves in the adorn- 
ment of his home, so goodness and moral beauty in 
a soul will always exhibit themselves in look and 
manner and bearing. 

Hence there is no beautifier of the person like 
the Holy Ghost dwelling in a lowly heart. The 
plainest features are often made to shine in almost 
supernatural loveliness when struck through with 
the warmth and tenderness of indwelling love. 
The most beautiful people in the world are truly 
benevolent people, their hearts full of sympathy 
aud kindness and their lives devoted to labors of 
love for the good of the race. The sweetest faces I 
ever saw were those of dear old Quaker mothers. 
All their life through they have kept their hearts 
at peace. They have never resisted, never defended 
their rights, never struggled against circumstances. 
They have quietly submitted to the will of God, 



230 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

and his calm and holy peace has filled their souls 
and ruled their lives. This blessed peace, indwell- 
ing, has made their faces almost transparent, radiant 
with the radiance of heaven and lovely beyond any 
picture on this earth. Old age writes no lines of 
decay and leaves no marks of wasting or fading 
upon them. The sweetness and freshness of youth 
linger through all the chill w r inter of years, like 
those tender plants and flowers that creep out in 
springtime from under melting snows unharmed 
and fragrant. An anxious and fretful disposition 
simply reverses all this. 

Love is the fulfilling of the law — not selfish 
love, but the love that goes out in self-denial, in 
sympathy, in kindness, in continual thought and 
effort and sacrifice for others. Such love builds 
beauty for its home, just as the chaste and delicate 
flower by its own nature fashions for itself a form 
of exquisite shape and hue. " The angels are 
beautiful because they are good, and God is beauty 
because he is love." Men and women grow lovely 
even in outward feature just in the degree in which 
they become filled w r ith the love of God. 

Not, then, to the outside must our care be given, 
but to the culture of the heart. A beautiful soul 
will transform the most repulsive features. On the 



PERSONAL BEAUTY. 231 

other hand, a bad heart will break through natural 
loveliness, spoiling its delicacy and beauty. When 
God took from a devoted mother a precious and 
her only child, she, to occupy her heart and hands 
in some way about her vanished treasure, filled the 
first days with touching a faithful photograph of 
her child which she possessed. Love wrought very 
skillfully, and under her brush the very features of 
the sweet, coy child-life came out in the picture. 
The photograph was laid carefully away for a few 
days, and when she sought it again the eyes were 
dimmed and the face marred with strange and ugly 
blotches. Patiently she wrought it over a second 
time, and the beauty was restored. Again it was 
laid away, and again the ugly blotches appeared. 
The fault was in the paper on which the photo- 
graph had been taken. There were chemicals lurk- 
ing in it which affected the delicate colors. The an- 
alogy holds in human lives. We may adorn the face 
and features as we will. By art and skill and care 
we may try to keep the complexion fair, the skin 
fresh and soft and the whole countenance beautiful ; 
but if there are within us selfish hearts, groveling 
dispositions, uncontrolled appetites, they will work 
out through the surface-beauty, and will blotch and 
spoil it all. 



232 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

The true culture of personal beauty is not ex- 
ternal ; it is heart-work. It is not the hot sun, the 
high winds, or any climatic accidents, that steal 
from cheeks their truest loveliness. I see ladies 
taking the most wonderful care to keep their com- 
plexions soft and white. They shield themselves 
scrupulously from wind and sun and reflection. If 
we were all to give as much thought and pains to 
keep the bloom of our heart's purity untarnished 
and the warmth and sweetness of our heart's life 
unwasted, our faces would soon shine with the lus- 
tre of angelic beauty. 

There are some who can never hope to be phys- 
ically beautiful in face and form in this world. 
Their visages are in some way marred. Accident 
or disease has left them disfigured. Or the sins of 
past generations have visited them in the shape of 
some physical deformity that dooms them to live in 
a ruined soul-house all their days. But even to such 
Christ brings the possibility of the rarest beauty. 
The deformed Christian will walk erect in beauti- 
ful womanhood or majestic manhood on the shores 
of immortality. The face scarred by the flames 
w T ill appear in unblemished loveliness in the new 
home. Wrinkled age will get back all the fresh- 
ness of childhood. Christ is able to take the mean- 



PERSONAL BEA UTY. 233 

est fragment of humanity and make it all glorious 
and divine. As the summer takes the barest tree 
from the clasp of winter, covers it with garments 
of green and steeps it in fragrance, so the Lord 
Jesus can take the most ill-formed, the barest and 
most unsightly character and clothe it in the gar- 
ments of grace and love. 

A piece of canvas is of a trifling value. You 
can buy it for a few pennies. You would scarcely 
think it worth picking up if you saw it lying in 
the street. But an artist takes it and draws a few 
lines and figures on it, and then w r ith his brush 
touches in certain colors, and the canvas is sold 
for hundreds of dollars. So Christ takes up a 
ruined, worthless human life which has no beauty, 
no attractiveness, but is repulsive, blotched and 
stained by sin. Then the fingers of his love add 
touches of beauty, painting the divine image upon 
it, and it becomes precious, glorious, immortal. 



XXIV. 

TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 

/~\NE of the divinest secrets of a happy life 
^^ is the art of extracting comfort and sweet- 
ness from every circumstance. Some one has 
said that the habit of looking on the bright side 
is worth a thousand pounds a year. It is a wand 
whose power exceeds that of any fabled conjurer's 
to change all things into blessings. Those who 
take cheerful views find happiness everywhere, 
and yet how rare is the habit! The multitude 
prefer to walk on the shady side of the ways of 
life. One writes of the "luxury of woe," and 
there would seem to be a meaning in the phrase, 
paradoxical as it appears. There are those who 
take to gloom as a bat to darkness or as a vulture 
to carrion. They would rather nurse a misery than 
cherish a joy. They always find the dark side of 
everything, if there is a dark side to be found. 
They appear to be conscientious grumblers, as if 

234 



TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 235 

it were their duty to extract some essence of misery 
from every circumstance. The weather is either 
too cold or too hot, too wet or too dry. They 
never find anything to their taste. Nothing 
escapes their criticism. They find fault with the 
food on the table, with the bed in which they lie, 
with the railroad-train or steamboat on which they 
travel, with the government and its officials, with 
merchant and workman — in a word, with the 
world at large and in detail. They are chronic 
grumblers. Instead of being content in the state 
in which they are, they have learned to be discon- 
tented, no matter how happy their lot. If they 
had been placed in Eden, they would have dis- 
covered something with which to find fault. Their 
wretched habit empties life of possible joy for them 
and turns every cup to gall. 

On the other hand, there are rare spirits who 
always take cheerful views of life. They look at 
the bright side. They find some joy and beauty 
everywhere. If the sky is covered with clouds, 
they will point out to you the splendor of some 
great cloud-bank piled up like mountains of glory. 
When the storm rages, instead of fears and com- 
plaints, they find an exquisite pleasure in contem- 
plating its grandeur and majesty. In the most 



236 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

faulty picture they see some bit of beauty which 
charms them. In the most disagreeable person 
they discover some kindly trait or some bud of 
promise. In the most disheartening circumstances 
they find something for which to be thankful, some 
gleam of cheer breaking in through the thick 
gloom. 

When a ray of sunlight streamed through a 
crack in the shutter and made a bright patch on 
the floor in the darkened room, the little dog rose 
from his dark corner and went and lay down in 
the one sunny spot ; and these people live in the 
same philosophical way. If there be one beam of 
cheer or hope anywhere in their lot, they will find 
it. They have a genius for happiness. They 
always make the best out of circumstances. They 
are happy as travelers. They are contented as 
boarders. Their good nature never fails. They 
take a cheerful view of every perplexity. Even 
in sorrow their faces are illumined, and songs come 
from the chambers where they weep. Such persons 
have a wondrous ministry in this world. They 
are like apple trees when covered with blossoms, 
pouring sweetness all about them. 

It may be worth while to linger a little on the 
philosophy of living which produces such results. 



TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 237 

Some people are born with sunny dispositions, with 
large hopefulness and joyfulness, and with eyes for 
the bright side of life. Others are naturally dis- 
posed to gloom. Physical causes have, no doubt, 
much to do with the discontent of many lives. 
Dyspepsia or a disordered liver is responsible for 
much bad temper, low spirits and melancholy ; 
and yet, while there is this predisposition in tem- 
perament on the one hand toward hopefulness, and 
on the other toward depression and gloom, it is 
still largely a matter of culture and habit, for 
which we are individually responsible. Young 
persons certainly can train themselves to take 
cheerful views of life and to extract enjoyment 
from any circumstances. 

This is clearly a most important part of Chris- 
tian culture. Joy fulness is everywhere commended 
as a Christian duty. Discontent is a most detest- 
able fault. Morbidness is a sin. Fretfulness grieves 
God. It tells of unbelief. It destroys the soul's 
peace. It disfigures the beauty of Christian char- 
acter. It not only makes us soured and unhappy 
in our own hearts, but its influence on others is 
bad. We have no right to project the gloom of 
our discontent over any other life. Our ministry is 
to be ever toward joy. There is nothing so de- 



238 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

pressing in its effect upon others as morbidness. 
Hence, for the sake of those among whom we live 
and upon whose lives we are for ever unconsciously 
either casting shadows or pouring sunshine, we 
should seek to learn this Christian art of content- 
ment. 

What are some of the elements of this divine 
philosophy of living? 

One is patient submission to ills and hardships 
which are unavoidable. No lot is perfect. No 
mortal ever yet found a set of circumstances with- 
out some unpleasant feature. Sometimes it is in 
our power to modify the discomforts. Our trouble 
is often of our own making. Much of it needs 
only a little energetic activity on our part to re- 
move it. We are fools if we live on amid ills 
and hardships which a reasonable industry would 
change to comforts, or even pleasures. 

But if there are inevitable ills or burdens which 
we cannot by any energy of our own remove or 
lighten, they must be submitted to without mur- 
muring. We have a saying that " What cannot be 
cured must be endured." But the very phrasing 
tells of an unyielding heart. There is submission 
to the inevitable, but no reconciliation. True con- 
tentment does not chafe under disappointments and 



TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 239 

losses, but accepts them, becomes reconciled to 
them, and at once looks about to find something 
good in them. This is the secret of happy living. 
And when we come to think of it, how senseless it 
is to struggle against the inevitable! Discontent 
helps nothing. It never removes a hardship or 
makes a burden any lighter or brings back a van- 
ished pleasure. One never feels better for com- 
plaining. It only makes him wretched. One bird 
in a cage struggles against its fate, flies against the 
wire walls, and beats upon them in efforts to be free 
till its breast and wings are all bruised and bleed- 
ing. Another bird shut in accepts the restraint, 
perches itself upon its bar and sings. Surely the 
canary is wiser than the starling. 

Then we would get far along toward content- 
ment if we ceased to waste time dreaming over 
unattainable earthly good. Only a few people can 
be great or rich ; the mass must always remain in 
ordinary circumstances. Suppose all our forty 
millions were millionaires ; who could be found to do 
the work that must be done ? Or suppose all were 
great poets. Imagine forty million people in one 
country writing poetry ! Who would write the 
prose ? A little serious reflection will show that 
the world needs only a very few great and conspic- 



240 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

uous lives, while it needs millions for its varied in- 
dustries, its plain duties, its hard toil. And yet a 
large amount of our discontent arises from our envy 
of those who have what we have not. There are 
many who lose all the comfort of their own lives 
in coveting the better things that some other one 
possesses. 

There are several considerations that ought to 
modify this miserable feeling which brings so much 
bitterness. If we could know the secret history of 
the life that we envy for its splendor and prosperity, 
perhaps we would not exchange for it our lowlier 
life with its homely circumstances. Certain it is 
that contentment is not so apt to dwell in palaces or 
on thrones as in the homes of the humble. The 
tall peaks rise nearer the skies, but the winds smite 
them more fiercely. 

Then why should I hide my one talent in the 
earth because it is not ten ? Why should I make 
my life a failure in the place allotted to me, while 
I sit down and dream over unattainable things? 
Why should I miss my one golden opportunity, 
however small, while I envy some other one what 
seems his greater opportunity? Countless people 
make themselves wretched by vainly trying to 
grasp far-away joys, while they leave untouched 



TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 241 

and despised the numberless little joys and bright 
bits of happiness which lie close to their hand. 
As one has written, " Stretching out his hand to 
catch the stars, man forgets the flowers at his feet, 
so beautiful, so fragrant, so multitudinous and so 
various." The secret of happiness lies in extract- 
ing pleasure from the things we have, while we en- 
ter no mad, vain chase after impossible fancies. 

Another way to train ourselves to cheerful views 
of life is resolutely to refuse to be frightened at 
shadows, or even to see trouble where there is none. 
Half or more of the things that most worry us 
have no existence save in a disordered fancy. 
Many things that in the dim distance look like 
shapes of peril, when we draw near to them melt 
into harmless shadows, or even change into forms of 
friendliness. Much of the gloomy tinge that many 
people see on everything is caused by the color of 
the glasses through which they look. We sit be- 
hind our blue-glass windows, and then wonder what 
makes everything blue. The greater part of our 
discontent is caused by some imaginary trouble 
which never really comes. We can do much to- 
ward curing ourselves of fretting and worrying by 
refusing to be fooled by a foreboding imagination. 

Then we need to learn ever to make the best of 

16 



242 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

things. There will always be cloudy days. No 
one can live without meeting discomforts, disap- 
pointments and hardships. No wisdom, no indus- 
try of ours can eliminate from our experience all 
that is disagreeable or painful. But shall we allow 
the one discordant note in the grand symphony to 
mar for us all the noble music ? Shall we permit 
the one discomfort in our home to cast a cloud over 
all its pleasures and embitter all its joys? Shall 
we not seek for the bright side? There is really 
sunshine enough in the darkest day to make any 
ordinary mortal happy if he has eyes to see it. It 
is marvelous what a trifling thing will give joy to a 
truly grateful heart. Mungo Park in the bleak 
desert found the greatest delight in a single tuft of 
moss growing in the sand. It saved him from de- 
spair and from death and filled his soul with joy 
and hope. There is no lot in life so dreary that it 
has not at least its one little patch of beauty or its 
one wee flower looking up out of the dreariness, 
like a smile of God. 

Even if the natural eye can see no brightness in 
the cloud, the faith of the Christian knows that 
there is good in everything for the child of God. 
There are reasons, no doubt, why no perfect hap- 
piness can be found in this world. If there were 



TAKING CHEERFUL VIEWS. 243 

no thorns in our pillow here, should we care to pil- 
low our heads on the bosom of divine love ? Our 
Father makes the nest rough to drive us to seek 
the warmer, softer nest prepared for us in his own 
love. 

To each one who is truly in Christ and who 
really loves God there is a promise of good out 
of all things. There is a wondrous alchemy in the 
divine providence that out of the commingling of 
life's strange elements always produces blessing. 
Thus faith's vision sees good in all things, how- 
ever dark they may appear, and ill in nothing. 
We need but living faith in God to enable us to 
take a cheerful view of any experience. 

There is another purely Christian element in the 
culture of contentment which must not be over- 
looked. The more the heart becomes engaged with 
God and its affections enchained about him, the 
less is it disturbed by the little roughnesses and 
hardships of earth. Things that fret childhood 
have no power to break the peace of manhood. 
As we grow into higher spiritual manhood and 
become more and more filled with Christ we shall 
rise above the power of earth's discontents. We 
shall be happy even amid trials and losses, amid 
discomforts and disappointments, because our life 



244 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

is hid with Christ in God and we have meat to eat 
of which the world knows not. 

Thus we may train ourselves away from all 
gloomy and despondent habits and experiences 
toward cheerfulness and hope. The lesson, well 
learned, will repay the sorest discipline. It will 
bring some new pleasure into every moment. It 
will paint beauty for us on the dreariest desert. It 
will plant flowers for us along every steep and 
rugged road. It will bring music for us out of 
every sighing wind and wailing storm. It will 
fill the darkest night with starbeams. It will 
make us sunny-hearted Christians, pleasing God 
and blessing the world. 



XXV. 

SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 

" Why should we think youth's draught of joy, 
If pure, would sparkle less? 
Why should the cup the sooner cloy 
Which God hath deigned to bless ?" 

A NY man is a cynic who condemns all amuse- 
■**- -*- ment as evil and inconsistent with the truest 
Christian life. Such teaching might have been 
accepted in the days of ascetic sternness and rigor, 
when piety meant contempt for all the joys and 
pleasures of life, when devotees thought to merit 
salvation by macerating their flesh, by breaking 
the chords of natural affection and by spurning 
every happy experience as sinful. Then holiness 
was moroseness, self-inflicted pain was a sweet 
savor to God, and pleasure was guilt. There have 
also been phases of undoubted piety in later days 
in which similar abnormal developments of Chris- 
tian life have appeared either as the result of devo- 
tion to some stern doctrine or produced by the sore 

245 



246 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

stress and strain of existence under which gladness 
died away and life became hard and colorless in 
its very intensity. 

In many lives misconceptions of the true ideal 
of Christian character have tended to illiberal 
views regarding pleasure. The loyal and earnest 
Christian seeks ever to imitate Christ. Our con- 
ceptions of his character and life reproduce them- 
selves, therefore, in our ethics and living. A som- 
bre Christ makes a sombre religion. A joyous and 
joy-approving Christ produces a sunny religion. 

It has been said from time immemorial that 
Jesus never smiled. The prevalent conception of 
him has been of a man clothed in deep sorrow, 
grief-laden, tearful, on whose face no ripple of 
gladness ever played. Wherever this conception 
has prevailed it has colored the lives of all who 
sought closely to follow Christ. The result has 
often been a gloomy religious spirit which sought 
to repress its natural joy. Mirth has seemed irrev- 
erent and all amusements have been regarded as 
incompatible with sincere piety. 

But as men have read more deeply into the heart 
and spirit of the gospel this view of Christ has 
been found to be superficial. Amid all his sor- 
rows, under all the deep shadows that hung over 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 247 

his life, Christ carried ever a heart of joy. Exte- 
riorly his life was hard and full of grief, but the 
hardness did not crush his spirit. He did not 
carry his griefs in his face. His heart was like 
one of those fresh-water springs that burst up in 
the sea, ever sweet under all the salt bitterness. 
Wherever he moved there were joy and gladness. 
Not one misanthropic word ever fell from his lips. 
He did not frown upon the children's plays, upon 
the marriage festivities, or upon the sweet pleas- 
ures of home. A benign joyfulness plays over 
nearly every chapter of his blessed life. The true 
conception of Christ's character is of a deeply 
serious man, earnest, thoughtful, living an intense 
life, but never sombre, gloomy or cynical, the deep 
earnestness of his character struck through with a 
quiet joy and the calm, steady light of a holy peace. 
Wherever this conception prevails it gives its 
lovely color, its sunny brightness, to the lives of 
those who love and worship Christ. It unbinds 
the iron fetters of ascetic piety. It does not make 
men boisterous. It tames wild nature. It re- 
presses excessive levity. It makes life earnest and 
serious, charging it with a deep consciousness of 
responsibility. But it does not restrain the inno- 
cent play of nature. It does not put out the light 



248 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of joy. There is no inconsistency between holi- 
ness and laughter. It is no sin to smile. Indeed, 
a sombre religion is unnatural. Gloom is morbid- 
ness. Our lives should be sunny and songful. 
The type of religion in the New Testament is 
joyous even amid sorrows. There is not a tinge 
of ascetic severity or misanthropic hardness in one 
of the saints whose pictures are preserved. We 
hear songs in the night. There is a flower that 
is most fragrant when the sun has set, and in the 
darkness pours its richest aroma on the air. So 
true religion grows in sweetness as shadows deepen. 
He misrepresents Christianity and the likeness of 
the Master whose piety is cold, rigid, colorless, 
joyless, or who frowns upon innocent gladness 
and pure pleasure. 

True Christlike piety does not, therefore, con- 
demn all amusements. It does not look with dis- 
approval upon the sports of the children or call 
youth's glad-heartedness sinful. There are proper 
amusements in which the truest Christian may in- 
dulge without grieving Christ, even enjoying his 
gracious benediction and conscious of his presence. 
It is not my intention to designate specifically what 
amusements are proper for a Christian, or to do 
more than lay down certain general principles 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 249 

relating to the subject. This is all that the Scrip- 
tures do, leaving the responsibility of discrim- 
ination upon the individual conscience. 

The necessity for amusement and recreation is 
written in our nature. No man or woman can en- 
dure the incessant strain of hard and intense life, 
day after day, month after month, without some 
relaxation. God ordained sleep, the Sabbath and 
home as quiet resting-places in which we may 
pause and build up what toil and care and struggle 
have torn down. And we need, not rest only, but 
pleasure also, to unbind for a little the stiff harness 
of duty, to relax the strain of responsibility and to 
lubricate the joints of life. All work and no play 
makes older people, as well as Jack, dull. One that 
reads Luther's private and home life, and sees how 
he could laugh and how he played with his chil- 
dren even when carrying the greatest burdens, 
learns where he found much of the inspiration for 
his gigantic toils and stern and herculean tasks. 

It is necessary for all earnest and busy people to 
have seasons of relaxation and diversion. But to 
what extent may we indulge ? Life has its duties 
and responsibilities, and these we must never neg- 
lect. If we must give account for every idle 
word we speak, must we not also for every idle 



250 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

moment, and for every moment wasted in pleasure? 
How far, then, are we at liberty to spend time in 
amusement or relaxation ? Clearly, only so far as 
it is needed to give us required rest and to fit us 
for the most efficient work. It is right to sleep ; 
but when we give more time to sleep than is neces- 
sary to restore tired Nature, to " knit up the rav- 
eled sleeve of care," and to fit us for duty, we 
become squanderers of precious time. The same 
principle must be applied to time spent in any kind 
of relaxing pleasure however innocent. Life is not 
play. It is very serious. It has its responsibilities 
and duties, which press at every point and fill every 
day and hour. He who would succeed in the excit- 
ing life of to-day cannot afford to lose a moment. 
Every hour must be made to count. And he who 
would fill up the measure of responsibility implied 
in consecration to God must redeem the time. 
Amusements are lawful, therefore, only so far as 
they are necessary to reinvigorate life's wasted en- 
ergies, or to put fresh buoyancy and elasticity into 
pow r ers wearied or worn by the strain of physical 
or mental toil. 

Amusement is not an end, but a means. It is 
not life's object, but a help on the way. It is not 
the goal, but the cool bower or the bubbling spring 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 251 

on the stiff, steep mountain-side. This distinction is 
vital, and must not be overlooked by those who 
would so live as to please God. 

Then, as to the kind of amusements in which we 
may lawfully engage, there are several equally clear 
principles to be observed. At the very outset, 
whatever is in itself sinful carries its own condem- 
nation on its face. A Christian is never to indulge 
in sin. No necessity of relaxation can ever give 
license to anything that contravenes the pure morals 
of the gospel. A Christian is never off duty, is 
never anything but a Christian. No combination 
of circumstances can make him blameless in vio- 
lating the principles and precepts of Christianity. 
These are just as binding on Tuesday or Thursday 
evening as on the Sabbath. Amusements, as well 
as books, speech, business and all conduct, must be 
brought to the bar of the highest Christian morality. 

Religion and common life are not two different 
and distinct things. We may not cut our existence 
in two parts and say, " Over this Christ shall rule, 
but over that he shall have no control." True re- 
ligion knows no difference between Sabbath and 
Monday, so far as the ethics of life are concerned. 
Each day brings its own specific duties, but there 
are not moral precepts for the one which are sus- 



252 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

pended when its sun sets that for six days a mit- 
igated or less holy law may prevail. Holiness is to 
be the Christian's dress all the week through in 
every hour's conduct. All pleasures and amuse- 
ments must be tested by the unvarying rule of right. 
The standard of perfect purity cannot be lowered. 

It is the fashion to laugh at criticisms upon art 
and certain forms of amusement, made on moral 
grounds. But for a Christian there is nothing 
which must not be tested by the severest rules of 
purity. All immodest exhibitions, all impropri- 
eties of attitude which would in ordinary associa- 
tions be condemned, all forms of pleasure in which 
lurks even the suggestion of impurity, must by 
this principle be excluded from the class of amuse- 
ments proper for one who would closely follow 
Christ. 

A further test which seems just and reasonable 
is a reference to the spirit of Christ's own life. 
This is to be the Christian's guidance in all things. 
His earthly life is the copy set for us. It is a safe 
and true thing to test every separate act and to as- 
certain our duty in every uncertain moment by 
asking what Christ would do if he were in our 
place. All life is following him. Where he will 
not lead us we cannot follow. As we have seen, he 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 253 

does not frown upon pure and innocent pleasures. 
He went himself, when he was on the earth, to 
places of enjoyment and festivity. He attended 
a marriage-feast and contributed to the gladness of 
the guests. He accepted invitations to family feasts. 
There is not a trace of asceticism in all the story 
of his life. And he would do the same if he were 
here now. Pleasures that are pure, innocent and 
helpful, or that contribute to the joy and good of 
others, he would enjoy. And what he would do 
if he were in our place, we, as his followers, may 
do. But there are amusements in which we may 
be sure he would not indulge. A tender spiritual 
instinct will readily discriminate between those in 
which he would and those in which he would not 
engage. This seems a reasonable and legitimate 
test for us, his followers. 

Then there is another test. The one great bus- 
iness of life is character-building. The aspiration 
of every earnest Christian is to grow every day in 
holiness and spirituality. This motive is to rule 
all life. Our business, our associations, our friend- 
ships, are to be chosen with reference to this one 
object. Anything that tarnishes the lustre of our 
spirituality, or hinders the development of our 
Christian graces, or breaks the inner peace of our 



254 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

hearts, or interferes with our communion with God, 
is harmful and must be excluded from among the 
circumstances of our lives. 

The question as to what amusements are proper 
or what improper for us, each one must answer for 
himself. Questions continually asked of pastors 
and recognized Christian guides are such as these : 
"Is it right for a Christian to dance? Or may 
he attend the theatre or opera or circus, or play 
cards?" The true way to answer such questions 
is by an honest appeal to experience. What is 
the influence of such amusements on our spiritual 
life and enjoyment? Is prayer as sweet, as wel- 
come, as helpful, afterward? Do we return to it 
from the hours passed in such pleasures with the 
same eagerness, the same desire, as before ? Do we 
find our communion with God as sweet, as restful, 
as conscious ? Do we retain the warmth and glow 
of heart that we felt before? Or do our amuse- 
ments mar our peace and interrupt our enjoyment 
of the divine presence ? Do they unfit us for de- 
votion, and do we find our hearts made cold and 
distracted by them ? Do they chill our ardor in 
Christian work? At what times in our life do 
we care most for such pleasures ? Is it when our 
religious life is at its best, when love is most fer- 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 255 

vent and zeal most earnest? Does the young 
Christian, in the warmth and glow of his first 
love, care for these things? Do they, in our ex- 
perience, promote our spirituality and fit us for 
higher usefulness? 

This is the experimental test. All the circum- 
stances about us are educating influences, and 
whatever is injurious to piety, whatever lowers 
character, is not proper or right as a means of 
enjoyment. 

True and rational amusements are a great force 
in educating and building character. All pure 
joy is helpful. All pure art leaves its touch of 
beauty. Pure music sings itself into our hearts, 
and becomes thenceforward and for ever a new 
element of power in our life. Laughter makes 
life sunnier. It sweeps the clouds from the sky, 
shakes off* many a care, smooths out many a 
wrinkle and dries many a tear. Pure pleasure 
sweetens many a bitter heart-fountain, drives aw T ay 
many a gloomy thought and many a hobgoblin 
shape of imagined terror, and saves many a dark- 
ened spirit from despair. "A merry heart doeth 
good like a medicine." Not the least highly-gift- 
ed men are those to whom God has imparted the 
talent of humor that they may make others laugh. 



256 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Sanctified wit has a blessed mission. Life is so 
hard, so stern, with so many burdens and strug- 
gles, that there is need for all the bright words we 
can speak. The most wretched people in the world 
are those who go about in sackcloth, carrying all 
their griefs in their faces and casting shadows 
everywhere. Every Christian should be a hap- 
piness-maker. We need a thousand times more 
joy in our lives than most of us get. We would 
be better men and women if w T e were happier. 
Like " the man who hath no music in his soul," 
he who has no sense of gladness and gives forth no 
pleasure is " fit for treason, stratagems and spoils," 
and is not worthy to be trusted. 

We need, most of us, to plan more pleasures, 
especially more home pleasures. Busy men need 
them, weary, worried women need them, glad- 
hearted children need them. There are amuse- 
ments and relaxations which do not tarnish the 
soul's purity or chill the ardor of devotion or 
break our fellowship with heaven, but which re- 
fine, exalt, purify, enlarge and enrich life. 

Much harm has been done in the past by the 
indiscriminate condemnation of amusements, while 
nothing has been provided to take the place of 
those which are harmful. The absolute necessity 



SOMETHING ABOUT AMUSEMENTS. 257 

of relaxation of some kind must be kept in mind. 
God has made us needing mirth. Amusement 
men will have ; and in this, as in all other reforms, 
the truest and wisest method is not to condemn 
and cut off, leaving nothing, but to provide true 
pleasures and substitute them, and let these win 
hearts from the impure and the hurtful. 

It was a maxim of Napoleon's, " To replace is 
to conquer." Let Christian parents and Chris- 
tian people in a community provide healthful and 
profitable entertainments for the young, and these 
will gradually and insensibly uproot and replace 
those which are pernicious and injurious. There 
is no other true and effective way. This is as much 
the duty of Christian leaders as to preach sermons 
and conduct Sabbath-schools. Otherwise, while 
one day's religious services bring help and purity 
to the lives of the people and the children, six 
days' worldly pleasures will more than undo all 
the good. Let Christian men and women quietly 
institute in every community such means of en- 
joyment as shall combine pleasure and profit, and 

thus the harmful shall be replaced. 
17 



XXVI. 

ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 

■jlEW objects are of such vital importance to 
-*- young people as the character of their early- 
friends. Tourists among the Alps climb the 
mountains tied together with ropes that they may 
help each other. But sometimes one falls and 
drags the others down with him. So the friends 
to whom the young attach themselves will either 
help them upward to fairer beauty and sublimer 
excellence or drag them down to blemished char- 
acter, and mayhap to sullied purity. 

A friend should be one whom we can trust per- 
fectly. It is the truest test of friendship that you 
can utter the most inviolable confidences, living as 
it were a transparent life in the presence of your 
friend without dreading for a moment that he will 
betray or misuse the privacies you have unveiled 
to him. Such confidence is impossible without 
a background of integrity and sterling character. 

258 



ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 259 

If you have the least doubt of a man's truth and 
honor, if you believe him capable of being dis- 
loyal even in thought, you cannot take him into 
the sacred relation of friendship. The familiar 
story of Alexander and his physician well illus- 
trates the trust that friendship should be able to 
give. The king was sick, and received a note tell- 
ing him that his physician intended to give him 
poison under the guise of medicine. He read the 
note and put it under his pillow, and when the 
physician came in he took the proffered cup, and, 
looking him calmly in the face, drank the draught. 
He then drew out the note and gave it to his 
friend. It is impossible to conceive of any trust 
more perfect than this. Such confidence could 
never be exercised in one of whose integrity we 
could have the faintest suspicion. The first essen- 
tial qualification in a friend is, therefore, a soul 
of unblemished truth. 

Then a friend must be one who will not weary 
of us when he discovers the faults and imperfec- 
tions that are in us. We meet people in society, 
and they see us in the glow of distance which lends 
enchantment, concealing our unlovely qualities or 
spreading over them a deceptive coloring. Some 
faces which look very attractive when veiled dis- 



260 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

close many blemishes when seen uncovered. There 
are few characters that do not reveal uncomely traits 
on intimate acquaintance that were not apparent in 
the ordinary intercourse of social life. We walk 
before our closest friends in a sort of moral desha- 
bille, and they oftentimes see much silliness, pride 
and vanity under the thin veneer of our society 
manners. Even in the very best of us there are 
unlovely features which close intimacy discloses. 
In choosing friends we want those who will not be 
driven away when they learn our faults. True 
friendship must be proof against all such discov- 
eries. It must take us for better or for worse. 
We do not want friends in whose presence we must 
wear a mask of reserve, but those who, seeing and 
knowing us as we are, shall love us in spite of the 
blemishes, seeking wisely, though not officiously 
or offensively, the removal of our faults and the 
elevation of our character. Nothing but great- 
heartedness is sufficient for this essential want. 

Then we should choose friends who will be help- 
ful to us. Every friendship leaves its impression 
upon us. There are touches that blight, and there 
are touches that are benedictions. A young and 
innocent heart is so delicate in its beauty that a 
breath of evil leaves it sullied. We cannot afford 



ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 261 

to take into our life, even for a little time, an im- 
pure companionship. It will leave a memory that 
will give pain even in the holiest after years. 

There is embraced in the thought of friendship 
the element of mutual helpfulness. There grows 
up between two friends a sort of holy communism. 
What one has the other must share, whether it be 
sorrow or joy. Whatever experience is passing 
over the chords of one heart is echoed also from 
the other. When there is a cup of gladness, two 
hearts drink of it. When there is a burden, there 
are two shoulders under it. Friendship knows no 
limit in giving. Its joy is not in receiving, but in 
imparting. It is not, therefore, exacting in its de- 
mands or quick to complain of seeming neglect. 
We want unselfish friends who shall care for us for 
our own sake. We want those who will never tire 
of bearing our burdens. We may have sorrow and 
adversity. We may become a great care in the fu- 
ture, unable to give anything in return save grateful 
love. He who becomes our friend takes upon him- 
self many possibilities of sacrifice and unselfish 
service. It may cost him much. He must be one 
who will not grow weary of these burdens should 
they be imposed. He must be ready to share our 
infirmities and not tire of helping us. 



262 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

There are friendships that do this. Holiest of 
them all is the parent's. I have seen a child grow- 
ing up deformed or blind or deaf, or mayhap weak- 
minded, so as to be always a burden and a care, 
never a pride or a joy. And yet through the 
years the parental hearts clung to it with most 
tender affection, never wearying of the burden, min- 
istering with almost divine patience and gentleness 
all the while. Then I have seen invalids who 
could never be anything but invalids, to be toiled 
for and to be watched over year after year, to be 
carried from room to room and up and down stairs 
like helpless infants. There was not a shadow of 
a hope that they could ever repay the toil they cost, 
or even lighten the burden they exacted from those 
who loved them. Even outside of home and 
family ties I have seen friendships that never 
faltered under burdens that were heavy and could 
never grow less. We know not what may befall 
us in the undisclosed years, and we want friends 
who will never tire of us should even the worst 
come. We want friends in prosperity and wealth 
who will cleave to us even more loyally if misfor- 
tune and poverty should strip us bare. Such 
friends are rare. Only purest unselfishness is equal 
to such tests. 



ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 263 

Then, in choosing friends, we should take those 
only with whom we can hope to walk beyond 
death. Why should we form close and tender 
attachments here to be severed for ever at death ? 
Why should we be unequally yoked with unbe- 
lievers? Friendship reaches its highest, truest 
meaning only when it knits two lives together at 
every point — not in the lower nature alone, but in 
the higher as well, and with reference to the eternal 
future. We should seek for our close friends, 
therefore, only those who are God's children. 
Then the web which we weave in our love-years 
shall never be rent or torn. 

Having chosen a few such friends, we should 
never let them go out of our lives if we can by 
any possibility retain them. Friendship is too rare 
and sacred a treasure lightly to be thrown away. 
And yet many people are not careful to retain their 
friends. Some lose them through inattention, fail- 
ing to maintain those little amenities, courtesies and 
kindnesses which cost so little, and yet are hooks of 
steel to grapple and hold our friends. Some drop 
old friends for new ones. Some take offence easily 
at imagined slights or neglects, and ruthlessly cut 
the most sacred ties. Some become impatient of 
little faults, and discard even truest friendships. 



264 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Some are incapable of any deep or permanent af- 
fection, and fly from friendship to friendship like 
restless birds from bough to bough, making a nest 
for their hearts in none. Then beautiful friendships 
are often destroyed, not by any sharp, sudden quar- 
rel, but by slowly and imperceptibly drifting apart 
until there is a great chasm between two lives that 
once were woven sacredly together. 

There are a great many ways of losing friends. 
But when we have once taken true souls into the 
grasp of our hearts, we should cherish them as 
rarest jewels. There is no wealth in the world like 
a noble friendship, and nothing should induce us to 
sacrifice such a treasure. If slights are given, let 
them be overlooked. If misunderstandings arise, 
let them quickly be set right. Let not pride or 
fiery temper or cold selfishness disdainfully toss 
away a friendship for any trivial cause. It is not 
hard to lose a friend, but the loss is utterly irrep- 
arable. 

Let it never be overlooked that we as friends 
must stand ready to be and to do all that we expect 
our friends to be and to do. If we set a high 
standard for them, that standard must be ours also. 
It will not do to give pebbles and ask diamonds in 
return. 



XXVII. 

THE ETHICS OF HOME-DECORATION. 

"Each man's chimney is his golden milestone, 
Is the central point from which he measures 
Every distance 

Through the gateways of the world around him ; 
In his farthest wanderings still he sees it, 
Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, 
As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are not." 

Longfellow. 

rflHIS is not an essay on household taste or 
-*- on the art principles which relate to the 
adornment of homes, but there is an ethical side 
to this subject on which I have a suggestion or 
two to offer. 

It is trite to say that every home influence works 
itself into the heart of childhood, and then works 
itself out again in the subsequent development of 
the character. None of us know how much our 
homes have to do with our lives. When one's 
childhood home has been true and tender its mem- 

265 



266 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

ories can never be effaced. Its voices of love and 
prayer and song come back like angels' whispers, 
like melodies from some far-away island in the 
sea, when the lips that first breathed them have 
long been silent in the grave. No one can ever 
get away from the influence of his early home. 
Good or bad, it clings through life. Homes are 
the real schools and universities in which men and 
women are trained, and fathers and mothers are 
the real teachers and makers of life. The poet's 
song is but the sweetness of a mother's love flow- 
ing out in rhythmic measure through her child's 
life. The lovely things men build in their days 
of strength are but the reproductions of the lovely 
thoughts that were whispered in their hearts in the 
days of tender youth. The artist's picture is but 
a touch of a mother's beauty wrought out on the 
canvas. A grand manhood or womanhood is only 
the home teachings and prayers woven into life 
and form. 

It is proven that even the natural scenery in 
which a child is reared has much to do with the 
tone and hue of its future character. Those who are 
cradled among the grand mountains or by the shore 
of the majestic sea carry into their mature years 
the mystic influence of those scenes ; and there is 



THE ETHICS OF HOMEDECORATION. 267 

no feature of a home itself or of its scenery and 
surroundings that does not print itself on infancy's 
sensitive heart like the images on the photog- 
rapher's prepared plate, to be brought out again 
in the future character. 

This truth is not properly appreciated. The 
educating effect of home-decoration has not re- 
ceived that attention which it deserves, nor has its 
moral value come into general and thoughtful con- 
sideration. The subject has been discussed from 
the view-point of art, but not from that of char- 
acter culture. Much has been said and written 
of books, good and bad, vulgar and refining, and 
of the importance of putting such only as are pure 
and elevating into the hands of the young. In 
like manner, the importance of their early com- 
panionship has received much attention. But the 
moral effect of home adornment needs to be con- 
sidered just as thoughtfully and carefully as that 
of either books or associations. 

It is important that in the education and train- 
ing of children we throw around their sensitive 
lives all of beauty, purity and inspiration that we 
can. The sites of our homes should be selected 
with reference to this. In this regard the country 
has usually wonderful advantages over the city. 



268 WEEK-DA Y RELIGION. 

Its lovely natural scenery is a gallery hung with 
the rarest beauties, and yet there are many build- 
ers of homes who seem never to give a thought to 
this. They choose sites for some temporary con- 
venience or on the ground of inexpensiveness in 
the midst of unlovely, or even repulsive, surround- 
ings, when at a little additional cost they could 
have placed their homes in the midst of pictu- 
resque scenery and refining surroundings. Apart 
altogether from the question of taste, the moral 
influence of the scenery on which the doors and 
windows open is of immeasurably more value than 
any difference in money cost. There is no refining 
and purifying power like that of true beauty. 

Then the ornamentation of the grounds about 
a home furnishes another opportunity not only for 
the display of taste, but for the choice of import- 
ant educating influences. These may be permitted 
to remain without any adornment whatever, open 
to passing hoof, trodden down, void of any trace 
of beauty. Former improvements may be suffered 
to fall into decay, leaving broken gates, tottering 
fences, unpainted buildings, grounds overgrown 
with weeds, with not a lovely walk or an inch of 
green grass, and not a tree or shrub, not a vine or 
flower. Or they may be made tasteful and beau- 



THE ETHICS OF HOME-DECORATION. 269 

tiful, with neatly-painted palings, gates in order, 
bright green lawn, shade-trees, pleasant walks, 
lovely plants and beds of flowers. In the mere 
education of taste the influence of these different 
surroundings is obvious, but there is a moral effect 
that is vastly more important. Holiness and 
beauty lie very close together, and the influence 
of all repulsiveness is toward evil. 

The moral effect of interior home-decoration is 
still greater. We should make the rooms in which 
our children sleep and play and live just as bright 
and lovely as our means, directed by wisest skill 
and purest taste, can make them ; and not only 
should the adornments and decorations be pleasing 
to the eye, but it is of importance that we give the 
most careful heed to their moral character. There 
are many pictures found in even christian homes 
whose influence is toward impurity. There are 
other pictures whose influence is toward gloom, 
and there are those again whose chaste beauty, 
bright cheerfulness and rich suggestiveness make 
them continual inspirations toward refinement and 
moral excellence. They frame themselves into 
young hearts and become a joy and comfort for 
ever. 

A young artist once asked a great painter for 



270 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

some word of advice which might help him in all 
his after-life. Having noticed on the walls of the 
young man's rooms some rough and coarse sketches, 
he advised him, as a young man desirous of rising 
in his profession, to remove these, and never to 
allow his eye to become familiar with any but the 
highest forms of art. If he could not afford to 
buy good oil paintings of the first class, he should 
either get good engravings of great pictures or 
have nothing at all upon his walls. If he per- 
mitted himself to become familiar with anything 
in art that was vulgar in conception, however per- 
fect in execution, his taste would insensibly become 
depraved ; whereas, if he would habituate his eye 
to look only on that which was pure and grand or 
refined and lovely, his taste would insensibly be- 
come elevated. 

This advice is of perfectly pertinent application 
to the use of pictures and statuary in home-dec- 
oration. Children from their earliest years are 
naturally fond of pictures. Their eyes rest much 
upon them, and insensibly they have much to do 
not only with the formation of their taste, but also 
in giving moral tone and color to their minds. 
Familiarity with vulgarity and coarseness will 
inevitably deprave, and looking upon pure and 



THE ETHICS OF HOME-DECORATION. 271 

beautiful things will imperceptibly, yet surely, re- 
fine, elevate and inspire. 

Lovely pictures in a home have a wondrous and 
subtle power in the education and refining of child- 
life. They may be but wood-cuts or chromos or 
steel engravings, but let them be chaste and pure. 
Let us hang nothing in our parlors or play-rooms 
or bedchambers or dining-rooms that would bring 
a blush to the sweetest modesty or start a suggestion 
of anything indelicate in any beholder's mind. 
Every picture, engraving or print will touch itself 
into the soul of each child reared in the home. 
That which is impure or gross will leave a stain, 
and that which is refined and lovely will become a 
sweetening memory for ever. 

The whole question of what is modest and pure 
in art is one that few Christian moralists have had 
the courage to meet. It is the custom to character- 
ize as " prudish " any criticism based upon ethical 
grounds, or any judgment of a picture or a statue 
which considers its moral influence. But as Christ- 
ians we are bound to look at everything from a 
moral point of view. A painting may rank very 
high as a work of art, both in conception and ex- 
ecution, and yet its influence be toward impurity. 
If this is the case, it is not fit to hang on the wall 



272 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

of any home. In the adornment of our homes, so 
far as works of art are concerned, Christian people 
cannot properly overlook this principle. 

The display of undraped figures on canvas must 
necessarily exert a harmful influence, especially 
upon the minds of the young. The religion of 
Christ is chaste, and condemns everything in which 
lurks even the faintest suggestion of impurity. 
Whatever, then, may be the merits of pictures or 
statuary as w r orks of art, true Christian refinement 
must fix its standard along the line of perfect pu- 
rity. The same principles that we apply to books, 
to speech and to behavior we must apply un- 
flinchingly to the selection of pictures for the walls 
of our homes. 

I know that this principle is denied. Men tell 
us that it is only a prurient imagination that sees 
impurity on canvas or in marble. They call it 
prudery and quote the motto, " Evil to him who 
evil thinks," or the Scripture aphorism, "Unto 
the pure all things are pure." They taunt us, too, 
with ignorance of high and true art, and begin to 
chatter learnedly about nature. The ability to be 
shocked, they say, by any representation of simple 
nature is an evidence of an evil imagination. Such 
things have been said so often, and modesty has 



THE ETHICS OF HOME-DECORATION. 273 

been so much laughed at, that pure and delicate- 
souled people do not dare to seem to be shocked ; 
they think they ought to be able to look at any- 
thing in art. The figures introduced in parlors and 
drawing-rooms wax more and more wanton as the 
petrified impurity of ancient heathenism is dug up 
and brought to fill the niches of a pure and chaste 
Christianity. How will this affect the purity of 
our households? 

Ignoring utterly the charge of prurience and 
over-delicacy, pleading for the utmost purity in the 
influence of the homes in which our children are 
growing up, I must reassert the principle that 
nothing which would be indecent in actual life can 
be proper in art. No sophistry can make anything 
else out of the laws of perfect purity which relig- 
ion inculcates. The least indelicacy or wantonness 
in any picture or statue in a home cannot but ex- 
ert a subtle influence for evil over the minds and 
hearts of the children. We admit this principle 
in reference to all other things. We believe that 
every shadow and every beauty of the mother's cha- 
racter prints its image on the child's soul — that the 
songs sung over the cradle hide themselves away in 
the nooks and crannies of the tender life, to sing 
themselves out again in the long years to come. 

18 



274 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

We believe the same of every other influence, and 
must we not of pictures and statuary as well ? 

A godly man said that when quite young an evil 
picture was shown to him on the street. He saw it 
only once and for a moment, but he had never been 
able to forget it, and it had left a trail of stain all 
along his years. 

I plead for most earnest consideration of this 
whole question of the morals of home-decoration. 
A dew-drop on a leaf in the morning mirrors the 
whole sky above it, whether it be blue and clear or 
whether it be covered with clouds. In like manner 
the life of a child mirrors and absorbs into itself 
whatever overhangs it in the home — beauty and 
purity or blemish and stain. 



XXVIII. 

PICTURES IN THE HEART. 

"'VTIEBUHR, the distinguished traveler, became 
•*- ^ blind in his old age. But, having traversed 
many lands, amid the fairest and loveliest scenes 
of the world, he had stored away in his memory 
countless pictures of landscapes, mountain-scenery, 
vales of rare beauty and great and splendid cities. 
Then, as he lay upon his bed or reposed on his 
easy-chair, his face would often brighten into a 
rich glow, as if some inner light was shining 
through. He was pondering once more some 
splendid scene he had looked upon in the sunny 
Orient. The chamber-walls of his memory were 
hung all over with pictures which filled his dark- 
ened years with joy and beauty. It mattered not 
to him that the light had gone out, leaving thick 
gloom all about him. His heart was his world, 
and there was no darkness there. No putting 
out of sun or star could obscure the pictures that 
hung in that sacred house of his soul. 

275 



276 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

In a far truer sense than many of us are aware 
do our hearts make our world for us. The things 
we behold are but the shadows of the things that 
are in us. If we have bright pictures in our heart, 
the whole world, wherever we go, will be a pic- 
ture-gallery. Every scene will be a panorama of 
beauty. The most repulsive objects will wear a 
tinge of loveliness. On the other hand, a sombre, 
cheerless heart clothes the whole world in shadow 
and gloom. 

A writer says : " A cold firebrand and a burn- 
ing lamp started out one day to see what they 
could find. The firebrand came back and wrote 
in its journal that the whole world was very dark. 
It did not find a place wherever it went in which 
there was light. Everywhere was darkness. The 
lamp when it came back wrote in its journal: 
i Wherever I went it was light. I did not find 
any darkness in all my journey/ The whole world 
was light. The lamp carried light with it, and 
when it went abroad it illuminated everything. 
The dead firebrand carried no light, and it found 
none where it went." Living men and women go 
through the world, and, returning, write records of 
observation just as diverse as these. Some find 
only gloom in the fairest paths, and amid the love- 



PICTURES IN THE HEART. 277 

liest scenes nothing beautiful. Others find noth- 
ing but beauty and brightness even in the deepest 
vales of earth. Each one finds just what he takes 
out in himself. The colors he sees are the tints of 
his own inner life. 

Many people move amid unbroken music, hear- 
ing not one note; so, in a spiritual world full of 
heavenly presences, men remain unconscious of the 
love and companionship that linger about them. 
Having eyes they see not, and having ears they 
hear not. Their sorrows go uncomforted, while 
the Comforter stands close beside them. The 
world seems dreary and cold, while tender warmth 
and rich beauty lie close around them. 

This is true in our commonest life. How many 
of us find all the good there is in our lot ! Do we 
extract the honey from every flower that blooms in 
our path ? Do we find all the gold that lies in the 
hard rocks over which our feet stumble ? Do we 
behold all the beauty that glows along the ways 
of our sore toil ? Do not many good things pass 
through our hands and slip away from us for ever 
before we even recognize their loveliness or their 
worth? Do not angels come to us unaware in 
homely disguise, walk with us, talk with us, min- 
ister to us, and then only become known to us 



278 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

when their place is empty and they have spread 
their radiant wings in flight which we have no 
power ever to recall? 

The baby seemed very troublesome as it broke 
your night's rest with its cries and you were com- 
pelled to rise and care for it. But when it lay 
hushed and still for ever among the flowers, what 
would you not have given to have heard it cry 
again ? We never see the beauty of our friends 
till they are vanishing out of our sight. While 
they were with us we were impatient of their 
faults. Their habits fretted us. But when death 
touched them it clothed them in a garb of bril- 
liant beauty. They appeared transfigured. Out of 
the dull, faulty character sprang a radiant angel- 
form, and hovered just beyond our reach for ever. 
What joy and blessing it had brought to our lives 
to have seen the beauty and the worth before the 
evanishing ! 

So it is in all life. It really takes but very 
little to make any one happy, yet there are many 
who cannot extract even a reasonable happiness 
from a world of luxuries and joys. There are 
some who see nothing to admire in the most 
magnificent collections of rare works of art, while 
others stand enraptured before the rudest picture. 



PICTURES IN THE HEART 279 

There are those who will go through a forest on 
a June morning when a thousand birds are war- 
bling and hear not one note of song, while others 
are thrilled and charmed by the coarsest bird-note 
that falls out of the air. One man sees no beauty 
in the most picturesque landscape; another finds 
some tender bit of loveliness in the barest and 
most rugged scenery. One cannot find pleas- 
ure or contentment amid the most lavish abund- 
ance ; another finds enough in the sheerest poverty 
to give deep happiness and evoke hearty praise. 

In nothing does this distinction come out more 
clearly than in the way the ills of life appear. 
One class of persons see nothing but ills. Every- 
thing wears to them a sombre aspect. Smallest 
trials are magnified into crushing disasters. All 
troubles look exaggerated to their vision. 

"We overstate the ills of life, and take 
Imagination (given us to bring down 
The choirs of singing angels overshone 
By God's clear glory) down on earth to rake 
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake, 
To cover all the corn. We walk upon 
The shadow of hills across a level thrown, 
And pant like climbers." 

These see nothing but adversity in all their days. 
They find some cause for discontent in the serenest 
circumstances. 



280 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Then others find only blessing wherever they 
go. Their sorrows are struck through with the 
glory of God's love. In the baptistery at Pisa 
the dome is so constructed that sounds uttered 
below come back in a delightful response of melo- 
dious music, and even a discord is converted into 
a harmony as it floats up into the resonant vault 
and returns to the ear. Such a dome hangs over 
these souls. Even the painful and discordant 
things are changed into rich harmonies. 

Life seems different to different people because 
their hearts differ. One man listens to thrilling 
music and is not moved; under the same strains 
another feels his soul kindled into rapture. The 
first has no music in his own bosom to interpret 
the melody that strikes his ear from without ; the 
other has a singing angel in his breast that responds 
to every sweet note that breathes through the air 
about him. "You must have the bird in your 
heart/' says some one, " before you can find it in 
the bush." 

It is not, then, half so much the outward in 
life that we need to have changed as the spirit of 
the inner life. The cause of discontent is not in 
men's circumstances, but in their own spirit and 
temper. Get the song into your heart, and you 



PICTURES IN THE HEART. 281 

will hear songs all about you. Even the wail- 
ing storm will but make music for you. Get the 
beauty and the good into your own soul, and you 
will see only beauty and good in all things. Get 
the peace deep into your own life, and you will 
find peace in every lot. 

Our hearts make our world for us. The things 
we see around us are but the shadows of our inner 
experiences, which are cast outside. The things 
we hear are but the echoes of our own inner 
thoughts and feelings. Pictures in the heart fill 
all the world with ugliness or loveliness. 



XXIX. 

LOSSES. 

r 1 1HEKE is no other loss, in all the range of 
-*- possible losses, that is so great as the breaking 
of our communion with God. I know that this is 
not the ordinary estimate. We speak with heavy 
hearts of our earthly sorrows. When bereavements 
come and our homes are emptied and our tender 
joys are borne away, we think there is no grief 
like ours. Our lives are darkened, and very 
dreary does this earth appear to us as we walk 
its paths in loneliness. The shadow that hangs 
about us darkens all the world. 

There are other losses — losses of friends by 
alienation or misunderstanding; losses of prop- 
erty, of comforts, of health, of reputation; the 
shattering of beautiful and brilliant hopes, but 
there is not one of these that is such a calamity 
as the loss of God's smile or the interruption of 
fellowship with him. 

Men sigh over those misfortunes which touch 

282 



LOSSES. 283 

only their earthly circumstances, but forget that 
the worst of all misfortunes is the decay of spirit- 
uality in their hearts. It would be well if all of 
us understood this. There are earthly misfortunes 
under which hearts remain all the while w T arm and 
tender, like the flower-roots beneath the winter's 
snows, ready to burst into glorious bloom when 
the glad springtime comes. Then there are 
worldly prosperities under w T hich spiritual life 
withers and dies. Adversity is ofttimes the rich- 
est of blessings. But the loss of God's smile is 
always the sorest of calamities. 

We do not know what God is to us until we 
lose the sense of his presence and the conscious- 
ness of his love. 

This is true, indeed, of all blessings. We do 
not know their value to us until they are imper- 
iled or lost. We do not prize health till it is 
shattered and we begin to realize that we can 
never have it restored again. We do not recog- 
nize the richness of youth until it has fled, with 
all its glorious opportunities, and w r orlds cannot 
buy it back. We do not appreciate the comforts 
and blessings of Providence till we have been de- 
prived of them and are driven out of warm homes 
into the cold paths of a dreary world. We do not 



284 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

estimate the value of our facilities for education 
and improvement till the period of these opportu- 
nities is gone and we must enter the battle of life 
imperfectly equipped. We do not know how 
much our friends are to us till they lie before 
us silent and cold. Ofttimes the empty place or 
the deep loneliness about us is the first revealer 
of the worth of one we failed duly to prize while 
by our side. 

In like manner, we do not know the blessedness 
of fellowship with God until his face is darkened 
or he seems to have withdrawn himself. Jesus 
was never so precious to the disciples as when 
they had him no more. Two of his friends, in- 
deed, never openly confessed their love for him 
until his body hung on the cross. They had se- 
cretly loved him all along, but now, as they saw 
that he was dead and that they could never, as 
they supposed, do anything more for him or enjoy 
his presence again, all their heart's silent love 
awoke in them, and they came boldly out and 
begged his body, gently took it down in the sight 
of the multitude, and bore it to loving burial. 
But for his death they would never have realized 
how much they loved him or how much he was 
to them. 



LOSSES. 285 

In like manner, David never knew what God 
and God's house were to his soul until he was 
driven away from his home and could no more 
enter the sanctuary. As he fled away it seemed as 
if his very heart would break ; yet his deepest sor- 
row was not for the joys of home left behind — for 
throne, crown, palace and honors — but for the 
house of God, with its hallowed and blessed com- 
munion. All the other bitter griefs and sorrows 
of the hour were swallowed up in this greatest of 
all his griefs — separation from the divine presence. 
Nor do I believe that the privileges of divine fel- 
lowship had ever been so precious to him before 
while he enjoyed them without hindrance or in- 
terruption as now when he looked from his exile 
toward the holy place and could not return to it. 

Does not the very commonness of our religious 
blessings conceal from us their inestimable value? 
Luther somewhere says, " If, in his gifts and ben- 
efits, God were more sparing and close-handed, we 
should learn to be more thankful." The very un- 
broken continuity of God's favors causes us to lose 
sight of the Giver, and to forget to prize the gifts 
themselves. If there were gaps somewhere, we 
should learn to appreciate the outflow of the divine 
goodness. Who is there among us all that values 



286 WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 

highly enough the tender summer of God's love 
that broods over us with infinite warmth ever- 
more? Our church privileges, our open Bibles, 
our religious liberty, our Sabbath teachings and 
communings, our hours of prayer, — do we prize 
these blessings as we would if we were suddenly 
torn away from them by some cruel fortune and 
cast in a land where all these are wanting ? Do we 
appreciate our privileges of fellowship with God 
as we would if for an hour his love should be 
withdrawn and the light of his presence put out ? 
There is something very sad in the thought that 
we not only fail to value the rich blessings of God's 
love, but that we ofttimes thrust them from us and 
refuse to take them, thereby both wounding the 
divine heart and impoverishing our own souls. It 
would be a very bitter thing if any of us should 
first be made truly aware of the presence and grace 
of Christ by his vanishing for ever from our sight, 
after having for long years stood with wondrous 
patience at our locked and bolted doors. It would 
be a bitter thing to learn the blessedness of the 
things of the mercy and love of God as we are 
often only made aware of the value of earthly 
blessings — by seeing them depart for ever beyond 
our reach. 



LOSSES. 287 

There is another phase of this subject which 
ought to bring unspeakable comfort to God's chil- 
dren who are called to suffer earthly losses. If 
they have God left to them, no other loss is irrep- 
arable. A gentleman came home one evening 
with a heavy heart, and said that he had lost 
everything. Bankruptcy had overtaken him. 
"We are utterly beggared," he said. "All is 
gone ; there is nothing left. We must go out of 
our home beggars for to-morrow's bread." His 
little girl of five years crept up on his knee, and, 
looking earnestly into his despairing face, said, 
"Why, papa, you have mamma and me left." 

Yes, what is the loss of money, stores, houses, 
costly furniture, musical instruments and works 
of art while love remains? Or what are tempo- 
ral and worldly losses of the sorest kind while 
God remains ? There is surely enough in him to 
compensate a thousand times for every earthly de- 
privation. Our lives may be stripped bare — home, 
friends, riches, comforts, gone, every sweet voice 
of love, every note of joy silenced — and we may 
be driven out from brightness, music, tenderness 
and shelter into the cold ways of sorrow ; yet if 
we have God himself left, ought it not to suffice ? 
Is he not able to restore again to us all we have 



288 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

lost? Is he not in himself infinitely more than 
all his gifts ? If we have him, can we need any- 
thing else? In very beautiful words has Mrs. 
Browning expressed this truth: 

"All are not taken; there are left behind 
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
And make the daylight still a happy thing, 

And tender voices, to make soft the wind. 

But if it were not so — if I could find 
No love in all the world for comforting, 
Nor any path but hollowly did ring, 

Where ' Dust to dust ' the love from life disjoined, 
And if, before those sepulchres unmoving, 

I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb 

Goes bleating up the moor in weary dearth), 
Crying, l Where are ye, O my loved and loving V — 

I know a Voice would sound : * Daughter, I am ! 
Can I suffice for heaven, and not for earth ?' " 

Therefore is it that so often we do not learn the 
depth and riches of God's love and the sweetness 
of his presence till other joys vanish out of our 
hands and other loved presences fade away out of 
sight. The loss of temporal things seems ofttimes 
to be necessary to empty our hearts that they may 
receive the things that are unseen and eternal. 
Into many a life God is never permitted to enter 
until sorest earthly losses have made room for him. 
The door is never opened to him until the soul's 
dead joys are borne out ; then, while it stands open, 



LOSSES. 289 

he enters bearing into it joys immortal. How often 
is it true that the sweeping away of our earthly hopes 
reveals the glory of our heart's refuge in God ! 

Some one has beautifully said, "Our refuges 
are like the nests of birds: in summer they are 
hidden among the green leaves, but in winter they 
are seen among the naked branches." Worldly 
losses but strip off the foliage and disclose to us 
our heart's warm nest in the bosom of God. 

19 



XXX. 

THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 

A BOU BEN ADHEM awoke one night from 
-*--*- a dream of peace — so runs the Eastern story 
— and saw within the moonlight in his room, 
making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, an angel 
writing in a book of gold. He asked, "What 
writest thou ?" The angel answered, " The names 
of those who love the Lord." " Is mine there ?" 
he asked. "Nay," replied the angel. Then Abou 
softly and cheerily said, " I pray thee, then, write 
me as one that loves his fellow-men." Next night 
the vision came again, disclosing the names whom 
love of God had blessed, and, lo ! Ben Adhem's 
name led all the rest. 

The more deeply we read into the life and teach- 
ings of our Lord and his apostles, the more clearly 
does it appear that the golden thought of this old 
legend comes out of the very heart of the gospel. 
It lies embedded not only in John's Epistles, but 
in the teachings of the Master himself. Love for 

290 



THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 291 

God is only a vaporous sentiment, a misty emo- 
tion, unless it manifest itself in love for men. 

Our Lord gave us a picture of the last judg- 
ment which at first almost startles us ; for, instead 
of making faith in himself or love for God the 
test of men's lives, he makes all turn, in that great 
final day, upon the way they have treated others 
in this world. Those who have used their gifts 
to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to relieve 
the distress of the poor, the prisoner, the sick, are 
welcomed into eternal joy. Those who have shut 
up their hands and hearts, allowing human need 
and suffering to go unrelieved, are themselves shut 
away from blessedness. 

Are men, then, after all, saved by good works ? 
No; the meaning of the picture lies deeper than 
that. True love for Christ always opens men's 
hearts toward their fellows. There is another fea- 
ture of the picture which presents this truth in 
still clearer light. Christ appears accepting every- 
thing done to the needy as done to himself in per- 
son: "I was anhungered, and ye gave me meat. 
I was sick, and ye visited me." Then, when the 
righteous say, in amazement, "Why, we never saw 
thee hungry and fed thee, or found thee sick and 
ministered unto thee," he explains by saying " Ah ! 



292 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

you didn't know it, but every time you fed a hun- 
gry neighbor, or gave a cup of water to a thirsty 
pilgrim, or visited a sick man, or clothed an orphan- 
child, or wrought any ministry of kindness to one 
in need, you did it to me " — that is, the way he 
wants us to serve him is by serving those who need 
our ministry. The incense he loves best is that 
which is burned, not in a golden censer to waste 
its perfume on the air, but in the homes of need 
to cheer some human weariness or comfort some 
human sorrow. 

The whole matter of practical consecration is 
ofttimes very unsatisfactory. We say that we give 
ourselves to Christ, making an unreserved consecra- 
tion of all our gifts and powers to his service. We 
are not insincere, yet are we not conscious that in 
our actual living we utterly fail to make good our 
solemn covenants and honest intentions? It may 
help us take our consecration out of the region of 
the emotional and make it real to remember that 
it is a living sacrifice we are to make of ourselves 
to God — that is, it is not merely hymn-singing, 
praying and love-rapture he wants, but a living 
service in his name and for him in this blighted 
world. 

The old monks used to hide away in deserts and 



THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 293 

mountains and in monastery cells, as far as possible 
from human sin and need, and thought that the 
kind of service Christ wanted. Sometimes they 
would torture themselves, lacerate their bodies, 
fast, live in the cold and storms. Some of them 
dwelt for years on tops of pillars and monuments, 
exposed to rain and snow, to heat and tempest, and 
thought that they were offering most acceptable 
sacrifices to God. 

But they were not. They were only wasting, 
in idle reverie, useless sacrifice, unavailing suffering 
and hideous self-torture, the glorious gifts which 
God had bestowed upon them to be used in serv- 
ing others. Only the living sacrifice is pleasing. 
We bring our natural endowments, our acquired 
powers or gains, our gifts and blessings, to his 
feet; and, touching them with his benediction, he 
gives them back to us and says, " Take these again 
and use them for me in bearing joy, help, comfort, 
cheer or inspiration to those about you and in 
life's paths who need your ministries." 

As we read still more deeply into the heart of 
this matter, we find that God bestows no gift, 
power or blessing upon us for ourselves alone. 
Take money. The mistake of the rich man in 
our Lord's parable was not that he was rich. He 



294 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

made his wealth honestly. God gave it to him 
in abundant harvests. But his sin began when 
he asked, " What shall I do with all this wealth ? 
Where shall I bestow all my fast-increasing goods ?" 
His decision showed that he was living only for 
himself. He thought not of his relation to God 
above or to men about him. " I will build larger 
barns, and there bestow my goods." Instead of 
using his wealth to bless others, he would hoard it 
and keep it all in his own hands. The man who 
fulfills his mission and illustrates his consecration 
when money is given to him is he who says, "This 
is not mine. I have received it through God's 
blessing. He has greatly honored me in making 
me his agent to use it for him. It is a sacred trust, 
granted to be employed in his name for the bless- 
ing of men ; I must do with it just what Christ 
himself would do if he were here in my place." 

Or take knowledge. Culture, in a consecrated 
life, is not to be sought for its own sake, but that 
we may thereby be made capable of doing more 
for the good or the joy of others. Each new lesson 
in life, each new accession to our knowledge, each 
new experience, is legitimately employed only 
when it is turned at once into some channel of 
personal helpfulness. One has the gift of music, 



THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 295 

and can sing or play well. The kind of consecra- 
tion Christ wants of this gift is its use to do good 
to others, to make them happier or better, to put 
songs into silent hearts and joys into sad hearts. 
Of all gifts, there is no one, perhaps, capable of 
a diviner ministry than is the gift of song. 

" God sent his singers upon earth, 
With songs of sadness and of mirth, 
That they might touch the hearts of men, 
And bring them back to heaven again." 

A young lady can read well. If she would carry 
out the spirit of her consecration to Christ, she is 
to employ her acquisition in giving happiness and 
profit to others. She can brighten many an even- 
ing hour in her own home by reading aloud to the 
loved ones that cluster around the hearth-stone. 
Or she can do still more Christly work by seeking 
out the aged with dim eyes, the poor who cannot 
read, or the sick in their lonely chambers, and 
quietly and tenderly reading to them words of 
comfort, instruction and divine love. 

Take the blessings of spiritual experience. 
There is a wonderful sentence in one of Paul's 
letters. He is thanking God for the comfort 
which he had given to him in some sorrow, and 
he says, " Blessed be the God of all comfort, who 



296 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

comforteth us in all our tribulation , that we may 
be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by 
the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted 
of God " — that is, he praised God not merely be- 
cause he had himself been comforted, but because 
the comfort which had been given to him in his 
sorrow gave him added power wherewith to 
comfort others. 

It was a great thing to feel the warmth of God's 
love breaking into his heart, the light of his face 
streaming upon his soul, and his blessed peace 
stealing into his bosom. But his personal experi- 
ence of joy in being thus comforted was entirely 
buried away in the gladness of the other thought, 
" Ah ! now I can be a better preacher to the 
troubled; I can bring more consolation to the 
sorrowing. I have gotten a new power of help- 
fulness with which to serve my fellows. I can 
do more hereafter to wipe away tears and to put 
songs into the hearts of others." It was for this 
that he thanked God — not that the comfort of 
God had been imparted to him, although that was 
a great joy, but that he had something now which 
he never had before with which to do good and 
scatter benedictions. His greatest gladness was, 
not that God had lighted a new lamp in his soul 



THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 297 

to pour its heavenly beams upon his own sorrow, 
although that was cause for deep praise, but that 
he had now a new lamp to carry into other dark- 
ened homes. What a sublimity of usefulness! 
Yet that is the true Christian way of receiving 
comfort and every spiritual gift and blessing. 
That is the true idea of consecration. 

" When thou art converted," said the Master to 
Peter — " when thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren." His meaning was that a new power 
of personal helpfulness was to come to him through 
his sad experience which he should use in strength- 
ening others to meet temptation. Then, when he 
had passed through that terrible night, -when he 
had been lifted up again, when he had crept back 
to the feet of his risen Lord and had been forgiven 
and reinstated, he had double cause for gratitude — 
that he himself had been saved from hopeless wreck 
and restored, and, still more, that he was now a 
better man, prepared, in a higher sense than before, 
to be an apostle and a patient, helpful friend to 
others in similar trial. 

Then take the still more wonderful experience 
of our Lord's own temptation. He certainly en- 
dured for his own sake that he might become Con- 
queror and Lord of all, that he might be " made 



298 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

perfect through suffering," but that which the 
Scriptures love to linger upon as the chief reason 
why he was called to pass through temptation was 
that he might thereby be fitted, by his own ex- 
periences, to be to his people a sympathizing and 
helpful Friend and Saviour. 

The meaning of all this is that we are to receive 
even our spiritual gifts and blessings not only as 
mere tokens of the love and kindness of God 
toward us, but also as new powers wherewith we 
are to serve our fellow-men. It is easy to be self- 
ish even in the region of our most sacred spiritual 
life. We may want comfort only that we may be 
comforted ourselves. We may desire high attain- 
ments in Christian life for their own sake, with no 
wish to be made thereby greater blessings to the 
world. But when we seek in this way we may 
not receive. Even in spiritual things selfishness 
restrains the divine outflow toward us. 

God does not like to bestow his blessings where 
they will be hoarded or absorbed. He loves to put 
his very best gifts into the hands of those who will 
not store them away in barns, or fold them up in 
napkins and hide them away, but will scatter them 
abroad. He puts songs into the hearts of those 
who will sing them out again. This is the secret 



THE SERVICE OF CONSECRATION. 299 

of that promise that to him that hath shall be 
given, and of that other little understood, little 
believed word of Christ, " It is more blessed to 
give than to receive." Heaven's benediction comes, 
not upon the receiving, but upon the dispensing. 
We are not blessed in the act of taking, but in the 
act of giving out again. Things we take to keep 
for ourselves alone fade in our hands. Men are 
good and great before God, not as they gather into 
their hands and hearts the abundant gifts of God, 
whether temporal or spiritual, but as their gather- 
ing augments their usefulness and makes them 
greater blessings to others. 



XXXI. 

BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. 

"Softly, oh softly, the years have swept by thee, 
Touching thee lightly with tenderest care; 
Sorrow and care did they often bring nigh thee, 
Yet they have left thee but beauty to wear." 

r 1 1HIS may scarcely seem a fitting theme to in- 
-*- troduce in a book meant chiefly for the young, 
and yet a moment's reflection will show its appro- 
priateness and practicalness. 

Old age is the harvest of all the years that have 
gone before. It is the barn into which all the 
sheaves are gathered. It is the sea into which all 
the rills and rivers of life flow from their springs 
in the hills and valleys of youth and manhood. 
We are each, in all our earlier years, building the 
house in which we shall have to live when we grow 
old. And we may make it a prison or a palace. 
We may make it very beautiful, adorning it with 
taste and filling it with objects which shall minister 
to our pleasure, comfort and power. We may 

300 



BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. 301 

cover the walls with lovely pictures. We may 
spread luxurious couches of ease on which to rest. 
We may lay up in store great supplies of provision 
upon which to feed in the days of hunger and 
feebleness. We may gather and pile away large 
bundles of wood to keep the fires blazing brightly 
in the long winter days and nights of old age. 

Or we may make our house very gloomy. We 
may hang the chamber-walls with horrid pictures, 
covering them with ghastly spectres which shall 
look down upon us and haunt us, filling our souls 
with terror when we sit in the gathering darkness 
of life's nightfall. We may make beds of thorns 
to rest upon. We may lay up nothing to feed 
upon in the hunger and craving of declining years. 
We may have no fuel ready for the winter fires. 

We may plant roses to bloom about our doors 
and fragrant gardens to pour their perfumes about 
us, or we may sow weeds and briers to flaunt them- 
selves in our faces as we sit in our doorways in 
the gloaming. 

All old age is not beautiful. All old people are 
not happy. Some are very wretched, with hollow, 
sepulchral lives. Many an ancient palace was built 
over a dark dungeon. There were the marble walls 
that shone with dazzling splendor in the sunlight. 



302 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

There were the wide gilded chambers with their 
magnificent frescoes and their splendid adornments, 
the gayety, the music and the revelry. But deep 
down beneath all this luxurious splendor and daz- 
zling display was the dungeon filled with its un- 
happy victims, and up through the iron gratings 
came the sad groans and moanings of despair, 
echoing and reverberating through the gilded, 
halls and ceiled chambers; and in this I see a 
picture of many an old age. It may have abun- 
dant comforts and much that tells of prosperity 
in an outward sense — wealth, honors, friends, the 
pomp and circumstance of greatness — but it is 
only a palace built over a gloomy dungeon of 
memory, up from whose deep and dark recesses 
come evermore voices of remorse and despair to 
sadden- or embitter every hour and to cast shadows 
over every lovely picture and every bright scene. 
It is possible so to live as to make old age very 
sad, and then it is possible so to live as to make it 
very beautiful. In going my rounds in the crowd- 
ed city I came one day to a door where my ears 
were greeted with a great chorus of bird-songs. 
There were birds everywhere — in parlor, in din- 
ing-room, in bedchamber, in hall — and the whole 
house was filled with their joyful music. So may 



BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. 303 

old age be. So it is for those who have lived 
aright. It is fall of music. Every memory is a 
little snatch of song. The sweet bird-notes of 
heavenly peace sing everywhere, and the last days 
of life are its happiest days — 

"Rich in experience that angels might covet, 
Rich in a faith that has grown with the years." 

The important practical question is, How can 
we so live that our old age, when it comes, shall be 
beautiful and happy? It will not do to adjourn 
this question until the evening shadows are upon 
us. It will be too late then to consider it. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, we are every day helping 
to settle the question whether our old age shall be 
sweet and peaceful or bitter and wretched. It is 
worth our while, then, to think a little how to 
make sure of a happy old age. 

We must live a useful life. Nothing good ever 
comes out of idleness or out of selfishness. The 
standing water stagnates and breeds decay and 
death. . It is the running stream that keeps pure 
and sweet. The fruit of an idle life is never joy 
and peace. Years lived selfishly never become 
garden-spots in the field of memory. Happiness 
comes out of self-denial for the good of others. 



304 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Sweet always are the memories of good deeds done 
and sacrifices made. Their incense, like heavenly 
perfume, comes floating up from the fields of toil 
and fills old age with holy fragrance. When one 
has lived to bless others, one has many grateful, 
loving friends whose affection proves a wondrous 
source of joy when the days of feebleness come. 
Bread cast upon the waters is found again after 
many days. 

I see some people who do not seem to want to 
make friends. They are unsocial, unsympathetic, 
cold, distant, disobliging, selfish. Others, again, 
make no effort to retain their friends. They cast 
them away for the slightest cause. But they are 
robbing their later years of joys they cannot afford 
to lose. If we would walk in the warmth of 
friendship's beams in the late evening-time, w r e 
must seek to make to ourselves loyal and faithful 
friends in the busy hours that come before. This 
we can do by a ministry of kindness and self-for- 
getfulness. This was part at least of what our 
Lord meant in that counsel which falls so strange- 
ly on our ears until we understand it : " Make to 
yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteous- 
ness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into 
everlasting habitations/' 



BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. 305 

Again, we must live a pure and holy life. 
Every one carries in himself the sources of his 
own happiness or wretchedness. Circumstances 
have really very little to do with our inner expe- 
riences. It matters little in the determination of 
one's degree of enjoyment whether he live in a 
cottage or a palace. It is self, after all, that in 
largest measure gives the color to our skies and the 
tone to the music we hear. A happy heart sees 
rainbows and brilliance everywhere, even in dark- 
est clouds, and hears sweet strains of song even 
amid the loudest wailings of the storm ; and a sad 
heart, unhappy and discontented, sees spots in the 
sun, specks in the rarest fruits, and something with 
which to find fault in the most perfect of God's 
works, and hears discords and jarring notes in the 
heaven] iest music. So it comes about that this 
whole question must be settled from within. The 
fountains rise in the heart itself. The old man, 
like the snail, carries his house on his back. He 
may change neighbors or homes or scenes or com- 
panions, but he cannot get away from himself and 
his own past. Sinful years put thorns in the pil- 
low on which the head of old age rests. Lives 
of passion and evil store away bitter fountains 

from which the old man has to drink. 
20 



306 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

Sin may seem pleasant to us now, but we must 
not forget how it will appear when we get past it 
and turn to look back upon it ; especially must we 
keep in mind how it will seem from a dying pil- 
low. Nothing brings such pure peace and quiet 
joy at the close as a well-lived past. We are 
every day laying up the food on which we must 
feed in the closing years. We are hanging up 
pictures about the walls of our hearts that we 
shall have to look at when we sit in the shad- 
ows. How important that we live pure and 
holy lives ! Even forgiven sins will mar the peace 
of old age, for the ugly scars will remain. 

Summing all up in one word, only Christ can 
make any life, young or old, truly beautiful or 
truly happy. Only he can cure the heart's restless 
fever and give quietness and calmness. Only he 
can purify that sinful fountain within us, our corrupt 
nature, and make us holy. To have a peaceful and 
blessed ending to life, we must live it with Christ. 
Such a life grows brighter even to its close. Its 
last days are the sunniest and the sweetest. The 
more earth's joys fail, the nearer and the more satis- 
fying do the comforts become. The nests over 
which the wing of God droops, which in the bright 
Bummer days of prosperous strength lay hidden 



BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. 307 

among the leaves, stand out uncovered in the days 
of decay and feebleness when winter has stripped 
the branches bare. And for such a life death has 
no terrors. The tokens of its approach are but 
" the land-birds lighting on the shrouds, telling the 
weary mariner that he is nearing the haven." The 
end is but the touching of the weatherbeaten keel 
on the shore of glory. 



XXXII. 

UNCONSCIOUS FAREWELLS. 

" I have often said ' Good-bye ? lightly, with plans for the fu- 
ture, to people whom I have next seen or heard of as dead." 

Private Letter. 

T7WERY hour there are partings, thought to be 
*-^ only for a little season, which prove to be for 
ever. One morning a young man bade his wife 
and child good-bye and went out to his work. 
There was an accident on the street, and before mid- 
day his lifeless body was borne back to his home. 
It was a terrible shock, but there was one sweet 
comfort that came with wondrous power to the 
crushed heart of the young wife. The last hour 
they had spent together had been one of peculiar 
tenderness. Not a word had been spoken by either 
that she could wish had not been spoken. She had 
not dreamed at the time that it would be their last 
conversation, and yet there was nothing in it that 
left one painful recollection now that she should 

308 



UNCONSCIOUS FAREWELLS 309 

meet her husband no more. Through all these 
years of loneliness and widowhood the memory of 
that last parting has been an abiding joy in her life, 
like a fragrant perfume or a bright lamp of holy 
peace. 

Life is very critical. Any word may be our last. 
Any farewell, even amid glee and merriment, may 
be for ever. If this truth were but burned into 
our consciousness, if it ruled as a deep conviction 
and real power in our lives, would it not give a new 
meaning to all our human relationships? Would 
it not make us far more tender than we sometimes 
are ? Would it not oftentimes put a rein upon our 
rash and impetuous speech ? Would we carry in 
our hearts the miserable suspicions and jealous- 
ies that now so often embitter the fountains of 
our loves? Would we be so impatient of the 
faults of others? Would we allow trivial misun- 
derstandings to build up strong walls between us 
and those whom we ought to hold very close to us ? 
Would we keep alive petty quarrels year after year 
which a manly word any day would compose? 
Would we pass neighbors or old friends on the 
street without recognition because of some real or 
fancied slight, some wounding of pride or some sup- 
posed injury? Or would we be so chary of our 



310 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

kind words, our commendations, our sympathy, our 
words of comfort, when weary hearts all about us 
are breaking for just such expressions of interest or 
appreciation or helpfulness as we have it in our 
power to give? 

We all know how kindly it makes us feel toward 
any one to sit beside his death-bed. We are spend- 
ing our last hour with him. We would not utter 
a harsh word or cherish a single grudge against 
him for the world. There will never be an oppor- 
tunity to recall any word spoken now, or to obliter- 
ate any painful impression made. We can never 
again give joy to this heart that is so soon to stop 
its beatings. What a softening influence this 
thought has ! All our coldness melts down before 
the eyes that have death's far-away look in them. 
All the long-frozen kindly sentiment in our hearts 
toward our friend is thawed out as we hold our last 
intercourse with him. 

Then we all know, too, how slumbering love 
awakes and cold spirits warm and all the chill of 
selfishness dissolves beside the coffin of one who is 
dead. Every one feels kindly then. Not a trace 
of grudging or bitterness lingers in any heart. 
Slights and wrongs are forgiven and forgotten. 
Icy winter changes to mellow summer. Loving 



UNCONSCIOUS FAREWELLS. 311 

words of gratitude or appreciation flow from every 
tongue. Praise and commendation never spoken 
when the weary spirit needed them so much find 
free expression when the heavy ear can hear them 
no more. Men feel themselves awed in the pres- 
ence of eternity, and heartily ashamed of their 
wretched spites and petty animosities and cold, 
mechanical friendship. 

Now, how it would bless and beautify our lives 
if we could carry that same thoughtful, grateful, 
patient, forgiving, loving spirit into our every-day 
intercourse with each other ; if we could treat men 
with the same gentle consideration, with the same 
frank, manly sincerity, as when we sit by their 
death-bed ; if we could bring the post-mortem ap- 
preciation, gratitude, charity and unselfish kind- 
liness back into the vexed and overburdened years 
of actual, toilsome life ! 

It would be impossible to live otherwise if we 
but realized that any hour's intercourse with an- 
other might indeed be the last. If a man truly 
felt that he might be spending his last day with 
his family, taking his last meal with them, enjoy- 
ing the last evening with them, would not his 
heart be cleansed of all harshness, bitterness and 
selfishness? Would not his feelings, his very 



312 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

tones, be charged with almost a divine tenderness ? 
If a mother felt that to-day might be the last that 
she would have her child with her, would she be 
so impatient of its endless questions, so easily 
annoyed by its restless activities, so fretted and 
vexed by its faults and thoughtless ways? 

Would we be so exacting, so calculating, so cold 
and formal, so undemonstrative, so selfish, in our 
intercourse with our friends, if we truly felt that 
to-day's sunset might be the last we should be- 
hold or that we should never meet our friends 
again? Would not the realization of this ever- 
imminent possibility act as a mighty restraint on 
all that is harsh or unloving in us, and as a 
powerful inspiration to bring out all that is kind- 
ly and tender ? The poet's words are well worth 
heeding : 

"If thou dost bid thy friend farewell, 
But for one night though that farewell may be, 
Press thou his hand in thine. 
How canst thou tell how far from thee 
Fate or caprice may lead his steps ere that to-morrow comes ? 
Men have been known lightly to tarn the corner of a street, 
And days have grown to months, 
And months to lagging years, ere they 
Have looked in loving eyes again. . . . 
Yea, find thou always time to say some earnest word 
Between the idle talk, lest with thee henceforth, 
Night and day, regret should walk." 



UNCONSCIOUS FAREWELLS 313 

With many a lonely heart regret does indeed 
walk night and day because of the memory of 
unkind words spoken which can never be un- 
spoken, since the ears that heard them are deaf 
to every sound of earth. Friends have separated 
with sharp words or in momentary estrangement 
through some trivial difference, and have never 
met again. Death has come suddenly to one of 
them or life has set their feet in paths divergent 
from that moment. Many a bitter and unavail- 
ing tear — bitter because unavailing — is shed over 
the grave of a departed one by one who would 
give worlds for a single moment in which to beg 
forgiveness or seek to make reparation. 

So uncertain is life and so manifold are the 
vicissitudes of human experience that any leave- 
taking may be for ever. We are never sure of 
an opportunity to unsay the angry word or draw 
out the thorn we left rankling in another's heart. 
The kindness which we felt prompted to do to- 
day, but neglected or deferred, we may never be 
able to perform. The only way, therefore, to save 
ourselves from unavailing sorrow and regret is to 
let love always rule in our hearts and control our 
speech. If we should in a thoughtless moment 
speak unadvisedly, giving pain to another heart, 



314 WEEK-DAY RELIGION. 

let reparation be made upon the spot. The sun 
should never go down upon our wrath. We 
should never leave anything over-night that we 
would not be willing to leave finally and for ever 
just in that shape, and which we would blush to 
meet again in the great* disclosure. 

Life's actions do not appear to us in the same 
colors when viewed in the noontide glare and in 
the evening's twilight. Little things in our treat- 
ment of others, which at the time, under the cross- 
lights of emulation and rivalry or in the excitement 
of business and social life, do not seem wrong, when 
seen from the shadows of final separation or great 
grief, fill us with shame and regret. This after- 
view is by far the truest. After-thoughts are the 
wiser thoughts. We get the most faithful repre- 
sentation of life in retrospect. The things we 
regret in such an hour are things we ought not to 
have done. The things we wish then we had done 
are things we ought to have done. There could be 
no better test of life's actions than the question, 
" How will this appear when I look back upon 
it from the end? Will it give me pleasure or 
pain?" 

We all want to have beautiful endings to our 
lives. We want to leave sweet memories behind 



UNCONSCIOUS FAREWELLS. 315 

in the hearts of those who know and love us. 
We want our names to be fragrant in the homes 
on whose thresholds our footfalls are wont to be 
heard. We want the memory of our last parting 
with our friends to live as a tender joy with them 
as the days pass away. We want, if we should 
stand by a friend's coffin to-morrow, to have the 
consciousness that we have done nothing to embit- 
ter his life, to add to his burdens or to tarnish his 
soul, and that we have left nothing undone which 
it lay in our power to do to help him or to min- 
ister to him comfort or cheer. We can make sure 
of this only by so living always that any day 
would make a tender and beautiful last day ; that 
any hand-grasp would be a fitting farewell; that 
any hour's intercourse with friend or neighbor 
would leave a fragrant memory; and that no 
treatment of another would leave a regret or cause 
a pang if death or space should divide us for 
ever. 

For after any heart-throb, any sentence, any 
good-bye, God may write 

Finis. 



HSfi. ARY 0F CONGRESS 



019 971 942 7 



